


The Ballad of the Detective Prince and Joker

by Zormikea



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, fanfiction about fanfiction, go me, sighs in why did i do this, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zormikea/pseuds/Zormikea
Summary: Logically, it does make sense. The Phantom Thieves have been getting a lot of attention recently, good and bad reputation alike, and with the latter being fueled by the famous Detective Prince himself it shouldn’t really surprise Akira that a bunch of fans came up with… this kind of content.(In which fans of the Detective Prince and fans of the Phantom Thieves unite in their desire to write an ungodly amount of fanfiction starring their favorite pairing. It doesn't go unnoticed, of course.)
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 22
Kudos: 262





	The Ballad of the Detective Prince and Joker

_The kitchen is dimly lit. One of the light bulbs keeps flickering on and off. A huge fan clings to the cracked ceiling up above, obnoxiously creaky from all the use it has seen throughout the years but still going strong, and in the far corner of the room an old music player stands by itself on the windowsill. Soft keys and strings of an unknown classical piece rise against the annoying noise but never quite manage to overpower it completely._

**_Click._ **

_The Phantom Thief shudders. He can’t see much from where his cheek is pressed to the cold surface of a greasy dining table. The weight of steel has just locked around his wrists, and yet he can feel it closing around his neck, grounding him, choking him like a deadly snake would choke its prey._

_He’s running out of time. There should be a lock pick left in his back pocket, and maybe, just maybe, if he’s lucky enough–_

_Fingers on the back on his neck squeeze harder, and he nearly jumps out of his skin._

_“Gah–!”_

_“My dear leader of the Phantom Thieves, I hope you realize there’s no escape from this,” the detective above him says with that brilliant smile of his. The smile radiates his undying confidence, his pride, his unavoidable victory–_

_And the thief bristles at it. He tries to shift his hands closer to his pocket, closer to the lock pick, **anything** he can use to defend himself, but his captor tugs at the handcuffs and pulls them back in their place in one sharp motion._

_“Oh no, I don’t think so,” he says._

_The detective chuckles at the futile attempt. He then lowers himself to the trembling body trapped underneath his own, and his knee slides between the thief’s legs, his lips brushing over the thief’s ear._

_“You’re mine,” he whispers the frightening truth. “Have always been mine. You can’t get away from–”_

Akira looks away from his phone.

Gets up from the bed.

After a moment of standing utterly, _perfectly_ still, he tosses the phone on the mattress and proceeds to pace back and forth all across the attic. Morgana’s ears flick up at the commotion – he glances Akira’s way from the couch where he’s been lying ever since they returned from the bathhouse.

“What’s wrong?” he asks in a sleepy voice, but Akira shakes his head, too overwhelmed to explain.

“Later,” is the only thing that comes out of his mouth.

The pacing doesn’t last long. The image in front of his eyes is too vivid. Akira lets out a deep breath to calm himself down and then gets back to the bed where he picks up his phone again. The screen greets him with the wall of suggestive text he’s just stopped reading – he swipes it away and opens the latest chat window instead.

His brain is overloaded with questions. Akira can’t decide on which to ask first, so he goes with the loudest one:

[ **Akira:** What exactly did I just read…? ]

And fortunately, the reply doesn’t make him wait.

[ **Mishima:** Wait, have you finished it already? There’s 12 chapters… ]

[ **Akira:** Of course I haven’t. Why would I want to, it’s ]

[ **Mishima:** It’s what? ]

[ **Mishima:**? ]

[ **Akira:** Nevermind that. Are there many of these on the net? ]

[ **Mishima:** Only on this website, I think ]

[ **Mishima:** 12 stories yesterday, 18 this morning ]

[ **Mishima:** There are a ton of comments, too. Some people REALLY want you and this guy to… well, you know… ]

[ **Mishima:** I assumed it would be better for you to find out this way and not another ]

[ **Mishima:** Right…? ]

A heavy sigh makes its way out of Akira’s lungs. He types a quick ‘yeah, thank you, please keep this between us’ and drops back on the mattress, his grip around the phone weakening.

Logically, it does make sense. The Phantom Thieves have been getting a lot of attention recently, good and bad reputation alike, and with the latter being fueled by the famous Detective Prince himself it shouldn’t really surprise Akira that a bunch of fans came up with… this kind of content.

He can’t deny there’s a certain degree of appeal in them, either. The Detective Prince is a naturally attractive, intelligent person with a smooth voice and a charming smile while the leader of the Phantom Thieves is a no less famous, unseen entity that can be used as a clean slate for every author’s pen – both of them are perfect targets for fanfiction writers. They happen to stand on the opposite sides of justice as well, presenting a conflict meaningful enough to base a stable relationship on.

Completely understandable…

…except apparently that relationship includes their mutual infatuation because of course it does.

Akira hides his face in his hands.

It’s funny. It’s ridiculous. Even if he doesn’t take into account the absurdity of the scene he stopped reading at, the fact still remains that the plot was spiraling into intimacy between the thief and his captor while in reality he and Goro Akechi have only spent a handful of evenings together. Akechi may be a person unlike anyone else Akira has ever met, with his unique views and witty remarks and eyes bright with unbendable desire to prove his truth correct, but this… this is simply too much.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Morgana asks Akira as he’s changing into his sleeping clothes, and Akira promptly realizes he doesn’t want to discuss the issue with anyone else just yet.

“It’s nothing serious, Morgana. Just people being people,” he opts to say. “We have to go to the Palace tomorrow, so let’s get some sleep now, alright?”

“If you say so...”

Akira pulls the blanket over his shoulders, faces the ceiling and hopes sleep won’t elude him for too long.

***

A few days pass since that evening, the month of June slowly melting into July. The Phantom Thieves finally finish their raid on Kaneshiro’s Palace and make it out alive with the treasure secure in their hands and a new change of heart blossoming in the near future. Makoto winds up joining the group, and that’s… that.

In the days that follow, having recovered from the mission, Akira finds himself extremely, insufferably _bored_.

He doesn’t mean to read the remaining chapters of the story Mishima sent him a while back. He ends up doing so anyway. There’s no thrill of treasure hunting anymore, his classes don’t require an insane amount of thinking despite his teachers assuring him they totally should, and eventually there’s really not much left for him to do aside from stealthily surfing the internet.

Akira can only surf so far before it gets boring too.

He braces himself, resumes where he left off, and it’s… not what he expected. What he initially thought would be a capture-into-sex scene scenario goes in an entirely different direction. The implication is still _there_ , but the author primarily focuses on the clash between law and chaos and on how justice system should and should not be working – all according to their personal world views, of course.

And it’s generally entertaining – insightful, even – but the thing is, while they may have a point, neither the leader of the Phantom Thieves, nor the Detective Prince are what they’re supposed to be, and the whole set up couldn’t be farther away from the truth.

There’s no Metaverse, no Personas and no Velvet Room – and alright, that’s fine, Akira can easily overlook that. It actually soothes him to know how far off people’s guesses are.

What he absolutely _cannot_ overlook is that despite all the rich plot buildup and fancy descriptions, Akechi can never shake off his own smile, and the leader of the Phantom Thieves is, well… he’s not Akira. Not by a long shot.

In fact, the guy is a twenty six year old former employee at a local radio station that treated him so poorly he swore to strike against the system, and so he goes around ‘stealing hearts’ and establishing his own justice by using actual hypnosis to alter his targets’ mindsets. Son of a gypsy, apparently. Somewhere in the middle of the story he gets locked up in prison and has to endure said system for years before the Detective Prince manages to bail him out. There’s a gazillion sex scenes involved before, during, and after the lock up. Akira can’t pinpoint which part unsettles him the most.

Mishima wasn’t lying when he said there were a ton comments. This work in particular has around thirty two of them, author and thread replies excluded, and out of interest Akira decides to read them.

He regrets his decision pretty much immediately.

***

…maybe another story will do better. It’s not like he has other things to do, anyway.

***

_There’s no way you haven’t heard about it,_ Akira mentally tells Akechi as his spoon digs into the delicious piece of dark chocolate cake the waiter brought him a few minutes ago. _You’re famous and have a ton of official accounts. There’s got to be **someone** among your fans who’d try to inform you about all the people who’re writing explicit porn about us._

He sends a spoonful of cake into his mouth.

There are many questions he would like to ask Akechi about this touchy subject. He doesn’t ask any of them. His friendship with Akechi is still too fresh, still too delicate to be marred with disrespectful topics, not to mention they’re sitting in a café Akechi himself invited him to, and Akira suspects there aren’t many people who get this sort of invitation.

So he just sits there awkwardly, chewing the cake, eyes trained on his fair haired companion who takes one unhurried sip of his tea after another. That is, until Akechi glances up and effectively snaps him out of his intense staring.

“Is something bothering you, Kurusu-kun?” he asks politely, placing his cup on the table, and Akira frowns at him.

There is a note of curiosity in Akechi’s voice. There’s also something underneath that curiosity, an additional weight that’s so light it’s almost impossible for Akira to perceive. He can’t put his finger on it, but an uneasy feeling creeps into his gut all the same, and suddenly he has to think hard about what he should say.

Fanfiction has to remain off the table. Even though it _is_ bothering him, it’s not yet big enough of an issue to be on everyone’s lips, so if he brings it up now, Akechi might correctly guess that he had to venture to a specific website to view the content. He might start wondering about how Akira learned about that place or why he felt the need to go there at all, and while Akira doesn’t doubt he’d be able to talk his way out of anything, it would still put stains on the otherwise pristine development of their friendship.

Akira doesn’t intend to lose what he achieved.

But if not fanfiction, then what? Surely, Akechi has figured out he’s on Akira’s mind, considering all the staring he’s just received.

“Ah, but if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t insist,” he speaks up again. Akira must have taken too long to respond. “I invited you here to have a good time, after all.”

Akechi picks up the drink, and part of Akira really wants to throw his concerns out of the window and just ask him directly, but in the end all he can do is return to the topic of the Phantom Thieves and their views of the country they live in. It’s a useful thing to talk about, seeing how clashing his and Akechi’s opinions may be, also relatively safe if handled correctly, and simply interesting for them both.

Akira carefully leads Akechi away from any improper themes, hoping he’ll get his answers soon enough somehow.

The conversation feels… nice. Comforting. He wouldn’t mind having more of these in the future.

***

The number of fan stories surrounding the Detective Prince and his mysterious arch nemesis, the leader of the Phantom Thieves, grows with each single day – even more so during late July when Medjed enters the big picture and threatens to uncover identities of the Phantoms should they remain indifferent to its demands. Comments and views spike drastically at the tiniest poke no matter where it lands, and creative souls pour into the website at disturbing speeds.

It’s not just story writers anymore, either: it’s artists, video makers, designers, all kinds of creative individuals, and the site rapidly flourishes into something incredibly stylish, a mix of shapes and colors from the Phan-Site and what Akira finds to be similar to the color scheme of the Detective Prince’s outfit, eyes and hair.

This is also the time when the website gains too much attention to remain a secret and leaks into the Phantom Thieves group chat. One beautiful summer morning Ann overhears someone from the modeling agency talking about it, and she spends few minutes on searching it online before dropping the link on everyone else’s heads.

Akira puts on his best game face. Acts like he has better things to do than waste his attention on such matters.

He only lets his guard down once the ruckus dies down, and when he gets back to reading, he makes sure Morgana is either out of the attic or can’t see the phone screen from wherever he’s sitting.

Akira infiltrates the website like he would a Palace – quietly, anonymously and thoroughly. It’s not that he’s deliberately searching for… questionable stuff (and it’s not like all stories center on that thing anyway, thank god), but he’s genuinely curious about how people picture him. There isn’t much else for them to focus on, aside from that: they have no idea how the Metaverse works, that it even _exists_ , and they don’t know how many thieves the Phantoms include, so there’s no point in trying to portray any of that. The Metaverse is generally substituted by the real world while his friends remain a cast of faceless grey characters in the background more often than not.

What remains is Akechi, whose character hasn’t been able to get past his pleasant side so far, and the leader of the Phantom Thieves himself.

Who, as it turns out, can be many, _many_ people, with a lot of names and codenames that for some reason never get anywhere close to Akira’s actual ones, and a lot of appearances that honestly make him want to drop reading after the second paragraph sometimes.

Akira has been blonde, blind, Japanese, forty years old, a wealthy writer leading a double life, intolerably charismatic, violent, physically handicapped, a rival detective, American, a redhead, black, a black redhead, a Shujin student (impressive, considering the rest), a woman, a child, a hacker, partially deaf, the Detective Prince all along (in which Akechi would become the leader of the Phantom Thieves or Akira’s second identity), the Detective Prince’s assistant, mentally unstable, ugly, gorgeous, obsessed with religion, a vengeful ghost, a top, a bottom, and _so_ much more…

And the most frustrating thing about it all, Akira reluctantly admits to himself as he puts his phone away for the night and wraps the blanket around his body, is that none of the works he’s been through at this point feature a leader of the Phantom Thieves whose character would be even remotely close to his.

They’re always someone else. Always a brand new person by Akechi’s side, always a new rival.

Thinking about that makes him feel somewhat... irritated, for selfish reasons, and he can’t help but wonder if it irritates Akechi too.

 _It must. There’s no way it wouldn’t, right? It can’t be fun to read about all these different leaders every single time,_ Akira figures as he closes his eyes with a curt nod that doesn’t reassure him as much as he would have liked.

He then attempts to keep his mind empty for the sake of whatever rest he can get, but his imagination doesn’t seem to care about his needs or decisions and springs into action right away, drawing pictures of the Detective Prince nodding enthusiastically at someone else’s opinion, offering to exchange phone numbers to occupy someone else’s evenings, wishing to prove the righteousness of his justice to someone else.

Akira brings his knees closer to his chest. Pushes the images as far away as they can go.

In the end, the thing that succeeds in distracting him is not the sheer force of his will but a tiny message alert spiking from his phone’s speakers. Must be the Phantom Thieves’ group chat.

Akira switches on the screen.

[ **Goro Akechi:** Apologies for the sudden message. Are you free tomorrow? ]

[ **Goro Akechi:** A work acquaintance gave me some tickets to an aquarium. ]

[ **Goro Akechi:** It’d be a waste to let them go unused, no? Would you like to come along? ]

Akira blinks.

He commits without a second thought.

Then he tosses his phone away again and closes his eyes, but sleep still doesn’t come to him. While his irritation gradually subsides, another feeling emerges in its stead, a feeling that is far less tormenting but no less strong in its nature. After turning this side and that, Akira recognizes it as nervousness.

He’s not used to the feeling. He hopes it will dull by the morning.

It doesn’t. The moment Akira approaches the aquarium building and sees Akechi waiting for him by the entrance, his heartbeat only leaps up.

Akechi still has his briefcase with him. He’s in the middle of what appears to be a work-related conversation if his serious expression and the mild tension in his posture are anything to go by, but as soon as he notices Akira’s arrival, his frown mellows, and he smiles.

 _Just like the Detective Prince would,_ Akira thinks absently.

Several days ago he read a story that started similarly to this. It was about a nineteen year old Italian musical prodigy. The boy came to Tokyo to share his talent with other talented musicians and accidentally got dragged into the Phantom Thieves’ business on the way, the organization he later took charge of. In the middle of the story the Detective Prince invited him out to a dolphin show and then blew him in a public restroom stall. They’d hardly known each other for a week.

Reading that story was an experience Akira wishes he could forget.

Akechi quickly finishes the conversation and tucks his phone into his pocket. “Hello. Your mood seems to be a little sour today,” he says, and if he’s having doubts, they don’t show on his face. “Did something happen on your way here?”

“It’s nothing,” Akira assures him with a one-sided shrug. “I just didn’t get much rest at night is all.”

Akechi tilts his head to the side. Brings a hand to his chin the way he usually does when he’s attempting to solve a puzzle or find an appropriate answer to fill in a crossword number. “Oh? Is it bad dreams? Or is there something on your mind that makes it hard to sleep?”

“A little bit of both,” Akira answers vaguely. He gestures at the doors. “Let’s go in. You have your briefcase with you, so I’m assuming you don’t have all day?”

“No, unfortunately, I don’t,” Akechi confirms with a small sigh.

They enter the building together. It feels like a date. _No wonder,_ Akira thinks as he follows Akechi closely behind while the other gets out their tickets. _It is a popular dating spot, after all._

The inside of the building is spacious. There are dozens of people wandering through and about the wide hallways, most of them young couples or parents with nosy kids. Neither Akira nor Akechi pay much attention to them: every transparent wall in here is a window into fascinating underwater life, with turtles and squids and fishes of various colors and sizes, and that’s a lot more interesting for them at the moment.

While they’re at it, Akechi shares random facts about the species they come across. Akira can’t share anything back because he doesn’t have much experience in terms of fish types, but he does his best to not make it known and memorizes everything he hears Akechi say.

 _It’s fun,_ he eventually realizes. Being here with Akechi is fun. Not the aggressive kind of fun Akira has in the Metaverse where he revels in adrenaline and the heady feeling of power, but the calm one where he can forget about everything and just relax for a while in good company.

It’s something he hasn’t experienced in a long time. Certainly not back at home and sadly not here in Tokyo, either. The Phantom Thieves are a merry little group despite their occasional bickering, and Akira cares about them all, but when he gets to hang out with any of them one on one, somehow instead of doing fun stuff he ends up acting as both moral and active support for them while they’re sorting out their personal issues.

Akira understands why that happens. He’s their leader, they confide in him, and it’s his responsibility to make sure every part of the group is running smoothly. But that also means he can’t lower his guard and enjoy himself with any of them like he’s doing right now with Akechi. For someone who’s loaded with school, detective work and continuous appearances on TV shows, Akechi sure doesn’t like to drop his problems on other people’s shoulders.

They're alike in this. Akira doesn’t make a habit of revealing his weak spots to other people either. He can’t afford to look vulnerable in front of those he trusts because he’s supposed to be leading them, and even without that he wouldn’t be able to open up – he tried doing that once when he was younger, and life quickly taught him that even his closest relatives could kick him to the ground instead of helping him up from his knees.

Akira chuckles quietly. Ironic, how the only person with whom the leader of the Phantom Thieves feels at peace is his rival in justice, the same man who wants to catch him and put him behind bars.

He follows Akechi everywhere. At some point they halt by a huge aquarium glass in the middle of the hallway where Akechi observes a horde of small silver and pearly fishes. They roam back and forth in a mesmerizing pattern – a dance of sorts – and he doesn’t say anything.

Akira watches as soft blue light from behind the glass falls on his face, reflecting in his half-lidded eyes.

“It’s been a while since I’ve come to a place like this,” Akechi says. His gaze slides to Akira’s face, and Akira smiles at him fondly.

“It’s a nice place,” he agrees.

***

August flies by in a flash – a very thorny, scary flash, considering how close Medjed comes to executing their plans and how long Futaba’s recovery takes before she’s able to strike them down right at the deadline. Seasoned with two weeks of working in a flower shop and exploring the Palace itself, that takes a lot from Akira, and he usually feels half dead by the end of the day.

There isn’t much fanfiction reading involved, but he does spend a couple of evenings in Akechi’s company: one of them in a cozy jazz club, sipping on tropical non-alcoholic drinks, and the other in an arcade center where they show off their aiming skills in co-op fps games (and a few rounds against each other – Akechi turns out to be a better shooter, which makes the competitive side in Akira boil with indignation). Both occasions are initiated by Akechi, and Akira is so exhausted he doesn’t bother thinking about what those invitations entail. After hours and hours of stressful infiltrations, this kind of entertainment is a gulp of fresh air for him.

They don’t need to focus on the subject of the Phantom Thieves anymore. During their meetings they only talk about themselves and each other, and perhaps that’s the thing that warms Akira most. For the first time since he learned about the existence of the fanfiction website, he thinks that maybe he should abandon his wait for a convenient moment to discuss the topic and focus on what he and Akechi have in reality instead: their friendship, their mutual understanding, their playful competitiveness.

This night, lying in his bed under a light blanket, he opens the website with that very thought, and his resolve stays strong for a whole quarter of a minute – until he reads the description of the latest story on the list. His thumb freezes above the screen, and his eyes widen in pure shock.

_Title: Second Best_

_Pairing: Akechi Goro/ PT Leader, Akechi Goro/ that black haired Shujin student_

_Rating: T_

_Warnings: None_

_Chapters: 1/?_

_Description: When the Phantom Thieves prevail yet again, and Goro Akechi is left without any solid leads to discovering who they might be, he spirals into depression and starts leaving work early, wandering the streets of Tokyo and seeking comfort wherever he can. One rainy day, as he walks past an already closed store in the middle of nowhere, he sees a young man sitting by the entrance, soaked and looking utterly defeated… Little does the Detective Prince know, he’s staring at his fate._

_Rating will change in later chapters._

Akira blinks a few times, not quite believing what he sees.

“What the fuck…” he whispers and taps on the title to read more. There’s an author’s note above the story, and his attention sinks its teeth into it.

_So I saw the pics ppl have been posting in this thread, AND IT’S THE SAME GUY LMAOOOOO so here you go! You thirsty bitches wanted angst with a love triangle?? I’LL GIVE YOU SO MUCH ANGST YOU WON’T RECOVER FROM IT MWAHAHAHA >:DDDDDDDD_

_kidding aside, I have SO many ideas for this one, just you waittttt_

Akira sits up. He’s having trouble breathing. Fortunately, Morgana is staying with Futaba tonight, making sure the girl is doing okay – Akira can’t begin to imagine how he’d explain his silent panic.

He taps the link, and it sends him to the thread the author was talking about. He looks at the opener, looks at the first reply, at the second one… presses his hand to his mouth as he takes in the entire thing.

It’s a photo thread on the website’s forum. The main topic of it is the Detective Prince Goro Akechi and his unspecified relationship with a black haired Shujin student – a guy he’s been hanging around with throughout the past few months. There’s at least twelve photographs scattered across the pages, and…

It’s Akechi and Akira. Everywhere. In the café where they tried the famous cakes. In the arcade club where they tested their limits in that co-op fps game. Walking together down the busy street, so close that their hands are brushing. Playing billiards and high-fiving each other after winning a 701 round of darts. Waiting for their train at the station, engaged in a conversation of sorts, wearing two identical smiles on their faces.

There’s even a photo of Akechi watching that fish dance in the aquarium. The fan who took that one clearly wanted to capture the sight of the Detective Prince’s serene expression – the shot is centered on his face – and yet in the corner of that photo is a blurry but unmistakable outline of Akira’s messy black hair.

Akira swallows as he taps back to the story, barely able to keep up with his running thoughts. Akechi did warn him about risks of getting unwanted attention should they stay in touch, but he didn’t expect people to secretly take pictures of them and post those on the internet. He absolutely didn’t expect them to _use_ those as fanfiction fuel… which brings him to another thought.

He spent weeks avoiding the subject in Akechi’s presence – at first because he didn’t want to look like a creep and ruin their forming friendship, and later out of respect for Akechi’s boundaries. But that was when the stories were revolving around the Detective Prince and the leader of the Phantom Thieves, this… this is Akira. Not a faceless cardboard cutout born of some outsider’s brain – _it’s Akira._ A person that actually exists and can be interacted with. The person Akechi _has_ interacted with.

It’s a whole new level of connection. If– _when_ Akechi finds out, he will want to know if Akira knows too. If one of his fans directed him to the website, he might try to find out if someone showed that place to Akira as well.

Akira’s inner Joker laughs bitterly.

_Pairing: Akechi Goro/ PT Leader, Akechi Goro/ that black haired Shujin student_

He falls back on the bed. Doesn’t know what to do. Should he read it? It’s about Akechi and him, and Akechi and him again, and about a potential romantic relationship that – according to the description – will bloom between them all somewhere down the line. Akira has been warned, and if he goes ahead and starts the story anyway, what will that say about him?

 _It’s not acceptable. Besides, there’s no guarantee the author knows what kind of a guy I am,_ he thinks. Then he looks at the description again. Licks his dry lips.

 _But what if they got it right?_ a small voice asks in his head, poisonous and sweet. _Isn’t that what you’ve been looking forward to ever since you read the first story? A character that you would be able to identify as yourself, standing by Akechi’s side?_

Akira can’t deny that. It’s no use. Somewhere deep down he has always been waiting for this, there’s no point in lying to someone he can’t deceive.

He closes his eyes and lies there for another couple of minutes, breathing slowly.

 _Come on… No one can see you. No one will judge,_ the voice persists.

One heartbeat, two. Akira sighs in defeat.

“Fuck this. It’s rated T, who cares,” he mutters under his breath and gets to reading.

***

_The old brick wall behind them is wet from the merciless onslaught of rain – still, Akechi shoves the guy towards it, the satisfying feeling of anger swelling deep inside him as he hears a sharp gasp. He growls, presses himself to the cold, shivering body, and curls his fingers tight around the soaked black fabric._

_The glasses on the other’s face are askew, but the dark eyes behind them are defiant. He hates them with his very being._

_“You think you know everything about me,” he hisses, refusing to look away from the other’s glare. A short, disgusted laugh tears away from his throat. “You don’t know– **anything**. Not even the most trivial things. And yet here you are, acting like you do, like I’m some open book for you to read–”_

_“Akechi, stop. You’re overreacting,” a quiet but firm voice interrupts him. A hand lands on one of his wrists and tugs at it gently while the other sneaks up to his face, brushing away his sticky hair and cupping his cheek._

_Akechi hopes his tears won’t fall, and if they will, that the rain can hide them._

_These touches, they’re soft, but they’re not weak, and every fingertip on his skin feels like a promise. He can’t remember when was the last time someone touched him like this. When someone accepted him like this, despite everything._

_When it felt like life was worth living._

**_No,_ ** _he orders himself. **Don’t let it get to you. He can’t give you what you need…**_

_Akechi lets out a shaky breath, clinging desperately to his fading anger._

_“What do you want from me,” he chokes out, lacking the strength to slap away the hands that are striving to soothe the burn inside him. He doesn’t know why this guy continues to call himself his friend. They’ve been at this for months, over and over again, drifting two feet closer and then ten apart – and yet no matter what happened, he never tried to walk away._

_Why, just why does he keep persisting when everything is so crystal clear?_

_This burn, this **longing** , he can’t rip it out. He can’t extinguish the fire that’s become Akechi’s only stability, his sole purpose._

_He can’t–_

_“I want you,” the shivering form in front of him says without hesitation. “I don’t care how far away you may be from the Detective Prince you’re leading people to believe in. I don’t care if it takes years for you to see me as your equal. I don’t care about the amount of hardships we’ll have to overcome as long as you’re with me. Don’t you get it? I just want you, Goro.”_

_Akechi’s brain screeches to a halt. His eyes snap open, his lips parting for a cruel retort that doesn’t come, and he doesn’t– for a moment, he doesn’t… anything._

**_This guy wants me,_ ** _he thinks. A thumb brushes tenderly under his eye, and he blinks, hot tears sliding down his cheeks._

**_He wants me…_ **

_A broke Shujin student who probably can’t even buy his own dinner, wants him. A miserable teenage boy who won’t ever be good enough for him, wants him. This kind, loyal idiot who’s just witnessed him at his worst – has been witnessing him at his worst for weeks now – and won’t get intimidated in the least, wants him._

_Wants **him** , and no one else._

_…inexplicable._

**_He doesn’t know what he’s doing,_ ** _Akechi thinks incredulously. **It’s abnormal. He’s a fool. A fool that keeps following me around like a pet dog even though I push him away every single time. I can’t believe this is happening… I can’t…**_

_“I don’t get you,” he says out loud, and hears a warm chuckle in response._

_The stare behind the glasses softens. Akechi’s thoughts get clouded._

_He leans forward–_

“Is that how you act on the first day of class?!” is the only warning Akira gets before a piece of chalk collides with his head, and the force behind it would tell tales of concussion if it was just a tad bit stronger. He yelps and presses a hand to his stinging forehead, back to the eventless reality of his school life in seconds. Morgana huffs at him from his hiding place in the desk.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, bowing in apology and not meaning it at all.

The teacher shakes his head at him with a distasteful grimace and then turns back to the blackboard where he’s been writing stuff Akira covered during the summer break. It’s not a difficult topic, he knows all the answers, so there’s nothing wrong with indulging himself with some light reading while the rest of his class is busy catching up. He might want to be a bit more subtle about it from now on, though… and maybe do it during another class.

Akira rests his chin on his palm and pretends to write in his notebook, ink drawing meaningless figures on the white paper instead.

 _Second Best_ turned out to be a rather… unordinary story. To put it mildly.

It’s an angsty piece of fiction just like the author promised. Besides the obvious investigation block in the ‘Stolen Hearts’ case there’s also an unhealthy love triangle involved: the Detective Prince falls for the unattainable leader of the Phantom Thieves and for the black haired Shujin student simultaneously. He still primarily focuses on his unrequited relationship with the former, which causes a bunch of unhappy events like the scene Akira has just been caught reading – and he seriously underestimated the impact of skillful descriptions. While the Shujin student doesn’t have a name, and Akira has yet to find himself in a situation similar to the one described in this chapter, the physical appearance of him is dead on; he can easily picture himself getting pushed against that wall.

As for Akechi, he is a far cry from his usual self – if Akira takes his popular Detective Prince identity as default. He goes beyond bright smiles and witty retorts, he isn’t nearly as strong willed as his other fictional selves and doesn’t shy away from showing his rougher side to the Shujin student when such a need arises. There’s this initial breakdown he has in front of the guy, and that sort of becomes their main theme from that point: Akechi gets angry at his inability to catch the Phantom Thieves, and the Shujin student attempts to distract him by dragging him to random places and having fun together. Akechi lashes out at the Shujin student, and the latter adapts instead of fighting back, giving the Detective Prince his acceptance and unbreakable support.

While Akira can’t see Akechi abusing him or himself allowing that abuse to happen, Akechi’s darker side is still an intriguing concept. His real character is certainly more complex than what he’s used to showing on public – Akira can vouch for as much since he happened to see it firsthand during the many hours they spent in each other’s company – and he can only wonder what kind of expression Akechi carries when no one’s watching, especially these days when the Phantom Thieves are reaching the peak of their popularity, and he has no other option but to sit back and witness it.

Now that Akira thinks about it, he has never tried to pry that information of him. That’s something his fictional counterpart did…

His eyes slide across the mess of ink staining the corner of the notebook. Maybe he should follow the example sometime. But right now there is a much more pressing matter at hand, and he should deal with that first.

He should talk with Akechi about the website. Akechi is a celebrity, so is Joker, and it won’t take forever for Akira to get there himself, pushed all the way up by the fans. It’s a matter of time before one of them has to bring it up anyway, so it might as well be him and on his own terms.

Akira waits patiently till the classes are over. He lets Morgana sneak back into his bag and then gets up and goes outside, walking past the other students who’re rushing out in various directions, happy to finally be able to scatter all over the city. As he’s passing through the school gates, he catches someone pointing at him from afar with the corner of his eye but doesn’t pay much attention to it.

[ **Akira:** Hey, I know this is out of the blue, but there’s a thing I want to discuss with you. Do you have free time today? ]

Akechi doesn’t make him wait.

[ **Goro Akechi:** I’m free right now. We could meet up at the café I showed you back in July if that’s convenient for you? ]

[ **Akira:** Yeah, that’s perfect, thanks. I’ll be there soon. ]

He turns towards the station and picks up the pace; it’s a good thing Akechi trusts him enough to agree to talk face to face without asking for further details first. Or perhaps he has already figured out what Akira wants from him: _Second best_ has been up for a week, it’s insanely popular, and the photo thread it’s based on keeps hoarding likes and comments as if someone’s getting paid for this.

No matter which is true, Akira’s steps do not falter. It’s nothing he can’t handle.

He finds Akechi in the outside area of the café – the guy is sitting at the farthest table in the back with an open menu in his hands, mostly hidden from eyes of the passersby by a set of conveniently placed potted plants. Akira spots him without any trouble because he knows where to look: it’s the table they laid their eyes on during their first visit here; back in the day it was already occupied, but they agreed on going for it next time.

As soon as Morgana catches a glimpse of whom Akira came to have a chat with, he throws a concerned glance at his supposed owner.

“Be careful around him,” he says, and Akira nods.

“I know.”

He waits till Morgana flits to the ground and disappears from his sight, tail swaying as he rounds the nearest corner, and then heads to the table casually.

“Hey,” he says when he’s within Akechi’s earshot.

Akechi looks up at him, smiling as friendly and welcoming as ever. “Hello, Kurusu-kun. Apparently, the café has a vast variety of new cakes on the menu, if you’re interested.”

“Always.” Akira sinks to the chair on the opposite side and sets his school bag on the floor. “Sorry to make you wait.”

“No need to worry about that,” Akechi assures him politely. He hands Akira the menu and puts both arms on the table, one on top of the other, waiting for him to pick something. “Do not rush now. There’s a lot to consider, and believe me, you don’t want to make the wrong choice.”

Akira goes through the list of recently added desserts. It’s been a while, but he thinks the menu has gotten twice as big as it used to be. Everything looks delicious, especially to his hungry stomach that saw nothing more than a lonely cup of coffee in the morning. “Honestly? Nothing looks like a wrong choice in here.”

Akechi doesn’t comment on that. They spend a minute or two in relative silence, rarely broken by noises coming from the street, before Akira looks up at him again.

“Which one are you getting?” he asks.

“The dark chocolate one,” Akechi answers.

“The one I had last time?”

“Yes. You seemed quite satisfied with it, so I thought I would try it myself.”

Akira chuckles. Closes the menu.

“Should have asked you earlier,” he says, gesturing for the waiter to come and take their order. “That makes it so much easier to decide.”

They mirror each other’s previous orders, and that’s where the prelude ends and the hard part starts: the waiter walks off into the building, leaving Akira with a perfect opportunity to get to the point of the meeting. In an attempt to look more relaxed than he actually is, Akira crosses his legs under the table and leans back in his chair, but the detective in Akechi reads right through the act. Akechi folds his hands over his chest and nods at him knowingly.

“Just tell me what’s on your mind,” he says.

Akira lets out a breath.

“Sorry, there’s no way to sugarcoat it,” he begins carefully, “so I’m gonna drop it as it is. There’s this website on the net, it’s about you and the Phantom Thieves. And about me, too. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do know such a website exists,” Akechi confirms. “Go on.”

 _Not a bad start. He’s not trying to bail on me yet,_ Akira thinks, some of the tension easing away from his shoulders.

“I’m guessing you also know what kind of content one may find there,” he continues, watching the other closely for reactions. “I looked through a few stories myself to get the gist of it.”

“Is that so.” Akechi glances away for a second. He doesn’t look repulsed, just thoughtful, and there’s no trace of anger on his face when his eyes return to Akira’s. “I assume you decided to talk about it with me because someone took the liberty of writing a story about us, correct?”

“Something like that,” Akira agrees. Akechi’s composed response alleviates his anxiousness, which it its turn makes Akira’s boldness grow stronger, fiercer. “Have you read it?” he asks.

“No. Have you?”

“I have. I read the whole thing.”

His answer comes out on a whim, long before Akira can think it through.

_Well, shit._

Too late to take it back, but at least Akechi’s reaction is worth it: wide eyed, he blinks at Akira once and then hastily catches himself, clearing his throat in an awkward manner. It’s obvious he wasn’t expecting to hear this kind of answer – maybe a strict ‘no’, maybe a humble ‘some of it, out of interest’, maybe a cocky ‘maybe’… but definitely not an immediate ‘yes, every part of it’.

“…and what do you think of it?” he asks warily, and Akira doesn’t have any other option but to go through with what he so mindlessly admitted. Embarrassment is nothing, he can conceal it just fine, wouldn’t be the first time in his life.

“I think you shouldn’t read it,” he grins. If he can’t back out, he might as well tease Akechi for a bit, see if he can peek through the cracks again.

Akechi frowns at him without uttering another word. Measures the answer he received. His stare hardens and then abruptly evens out as he comes to some sort of conclusion.

And then the trademark smile returns to his face.

“Oh, really?” he asks with a voice that’s as sweet as it is defiant. “And why is that?”

“Because it’s packed up with sensitive scenes you might not like,” Akira reasons. He makes a vague gesture with his hand and then points directly at himself. “Unless you aren’t opposed to encountering a version of you that enjoys pushing this poor unsuspecting Shujin student against brick walls.”

The waiter chooses this very moment to return with their order. It’s the best timing he could have possibly come up with, and Akira eagerly digs into his cake, appreciating the way Akechi doesn’t pay much attention to his own dessert.

That is, until:

“Well then, I assume _you_ are not opposed to it at all, given that you claim to have read _‘the whole thing’_ ,” he counters, and that’s a smart observation, there’s no safe escape out of it. Akira even makes the grave mistake of stopping mid chew.

_Dammit!_

Akechi’s smile broadens at the slip up. He does tend to his dessert now, smug bastard, and Akira hurries to find his tongue while he can still soften the fall. Nothing he says will give him advantage anymore, and in the worst case he will make a total fool of himself, but _he can’t stay silent_.

“It’s not like that,” he ends up explaining. “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I mean, yeah, I _was_ curious about the story, someone put me into the main cast after all, that doesn’t happen every day… but there’s also a photo thread with us on the forum, and it’s pinned at the top. If we were sitting closer to the entrance of this café, I wouldn’t be surprised to find fresh pictures of us in there tomorrow morning.”

Akechi’s brows crease. He brings a cup of tea to his lips and takes a sip. Looks up at Akira.

The glint of victory in his eyes is not as vibrant anymore.

“And if you did, then what?” he asks calmly. “Attention can only get worse from here, you know. First they will stalk you and take pictures, share them online, and then they will separate into two armies, one of them thirsting after you, or us together, and the other mixing your name with dirt. Surely you don’t want that?”

It’s a rough turn. Akira momentarily forgets everything about his cake, about _Second Best_ , about the spark of whatever it was they just went through. Akechi is implying another question between the lines; it’s a grim question, and Akira doesn’t like it one bit.

“Nah, I don’t really care about what other people think of me,” he says. Joker’s confidence, amplified by numerous successful heart changes, drips from his every word. “They can point at me, laugh, and I won’t bother looking. And writing stories? Let them do that. See how entertaining their little fantasies can get.”

 _And yes, I’ve basically just confessed my intention to keep on reading,_ he adds internally. _Please don’t notice that._

Akechi shakes his head, smiling. It’s not a big smile, but it’s sincere.

“You’re being naïve, Kurusu-kun,” he says. “But I suppose I can admit that I too am curious to see where this path may lead us.”

Akira nods at him and gets back to his cake.

He hopes he knows what he’s getting himself into.

***

**_He doesn’t know what he’s doing,_ ** _Akechi thinks incredulously. **It’s abnormal. He’s a fool. A fool that keeps following me around like a pet dog even though I push him away every single time. I can’t believe this is happening… I can’t…**_

_“I don’t get you,” he says out loud, and hears a warm chuckle in response._

_The stare behind the glasses softens. Akechi’s thoughts get clouded._

_He leans forward and presses his lips to the corner of the other’s mouth._

**_Is this what you wanted?_ ** _his burning glare asks when he swiftly retreats, and the answer is evident in how the dark eyes in front of his own fill with haziness, pupils dilating with want and anticipation. Strong arms wrap around his waist and bring him impossibly closer._

**_‘Yes.’_ **

_Akechi feels desired. The feeling is a bottomless pit, intoxicating, makes his knees give out– but the trap-like hold prevents him from falling._

_He leans in again, and doesn’t pull away for a long time._

_\-------_

_\-------_

_\-------_

_a/n: it’s gonna get hotter from here ngl. Get yourselves ready for that rating change!_

_Love yaaaaall byeeeee ^3^_

Taking a deep breath, Akira presses his back to the worn seat of the train that’s taking him home, his hand coming up to rub his eyelids under the glasses.

He’s not so sure he should read the next chapter when it comes out. Relatable characterization or not, it concerns him with how much detail he can picture the last scene.

***

Two days later Akira finds out that he isn’t opposed to encountering a version of Akechi that enjoys pushing poor unsuspecting Shujin students against brick walls after all. There’s no other way to interpret the stutter of his heart when on the ride to school he opens the website and sees that _Second Best_ has updated – both the story and its rating along with it.

From T to E, which means that, should Akira tap on the title and head to the new chapter, he _will_ encounter an explicit sex scene. It’s going to be a predictable sex scene too, judging by the ending of the previous chapter. A sex scene between Akechi and him.

 _A sex scene between a depressed double of the Detective Prince and a nameless Shujin student who wears my face,_ Akira corrects himself, except the words don’t sound very convincing in his head. The author who wrote this, they were looking at photos of him and Akechi while they were writing. For them, as well as for all their readers, the depressed double of the Detective Prince is who they think Akechi may actually be off screen, and the nameless Shujin student is not that nameless either, it’s a specific person. It’s Akira.

Akira would be lying if he said he didn’t see him and Akechi in those characters too.

 _So what does this reaction mean,_ he asks himself, watching the title with unfocused eyes. _What exactly does it say about me?_

Before he can answer that question, a new message pops up on top of the screen. His attention switches to it.

[ **Mishima:** This is getting out of hand ]

[ **Mishima:** The goddamn website is not enough for these sick people anymore, they’re starting to leave unrelated posts on the Phan-Site! ]

[ **Mishima:** I had to delete 15 of those this morning, what do they think they’re doing?! Phan-Site wasn’t made for this, why don’t they get it?? ]

Akira sighs. He wants to ignore the issue. He can’t. He’s the leader of the Phantom Thieves, so he has to act accordingly.

He opens the chat window and adapts to Mishima’s situation; unrelated posts surfacing on the Phan-Site – yes, he can understand the frustration his classmate must be feeling. Akira may have a hobby of reading stories the Phantom Thieves’ fans are so devoted to posting, but Phan-Site is tied to serious business, it’s no place for mindless chit-chat and self-promotions.

He starts typing.

[ **Akira:** I’m sorry you have to deal with that ]

[ **Akira:** I wish we could do something about it ]

[ **Mishima:** Maybe you can ]

Akira frowns at his phone. _What?_

[ **Akira:** What do you mean? ]

[ **Mishima:** Maybe there’s someone whose heart you can change ]

[ **Mishima:** Someone who inspires everyone else. Maybe several people. The obsessed ones? I don’t know, I just want my site to go back to normal! ]

A change of heart… Akira hasn’t thought about that. It doesn’t seem likely that fanfiction writers can have Shadows of them roaming somewhere deep in Mementos – writing porn stories about celebrities is not really that twisted of a crime – but he can’t be certain. The Phantom Thieves haven’t touched Mementos since wiping out Futaba’s Palace, this is something they will need to check.

[ **Akira:** Alright, I get you. We’ll keep an eye out ]

[ **Mishima:** Thanks a bunch ]

[ **Mishima:** Meanwhile I’ll go and sort some more posts… ugh ]

Akira closes the chat window and promptly tucks the phone back into his pocket before he gives in and opens the tab he totally shouldn’t open while being carried by an overcrowded train.

The Phantom Thieves have a meeting scheduled at Futaba’s place later today, so he might as well bring up Mishima’s idea there.

***

He brings up Mishima’s idea on the meeting. The mere mentioning of the website launches a burst of mixed reactions, ranging from Ryuji’s loud disgust to Futaba’s thundering cackle.

“I don’t think we can do anything about it,” Makoto says once the noise subsides to what she deems acceptable for offering helpful insights. “These people aren’t rotten through and through like our usual targets, and there aren’t any posts on the Phan-Site related to them.”

“That’s what I think too,” Ann agrees, patting Ryuji’s shoulder to help keep his righteous anger at bay. Her sad eyes are directed at Akira. “I know it’s not fair and you’re probably tired of all the rumors and side glances circling around, but this is a standard downside of hanging out with a celebrity. It’s nothing we as the Phantom Thieves can address.”

“And so what, these sickos can keep posting that shit all over the internet?!” Ryuji explodes despite Ann’s input, and Akira raises a hand, asking for silence.

He understands that his friend is behaving like this out of worry for both Joker’s and Akira’s dignities, he really does. But there’s no use in shouting. It won’t change the fact that they have no relevant targets. It won’t change the fact that they’re powerless against this.

“It’s okay, Ryuji,” he says. “Let’s stick to our primary objectives for now. If something comes up later, we’ll do what we can, is that good?”

Ryuji huffs.

There’s nothing he can do but agree with the leader.

***

The meeting takes _hours_. There are a lot of things to worry about besides the Phan-Site, and each of them requires rigorous preparation and a set infiltration date so that all members of the group can be available for action and in their best shapes as well. As the result, by the time Akira finally drops face-first on his bed and groans at the feeling of relief this brings to his exhausted body, the digital clock on his phone almost shows midnight.

He asked Morgana to keep Futaba’s company for a while: among the Thieves she’s the youngest and has the most to deal with, so he thought it wouldn’t hurt to make sure she gets her sleep when it’s due.

…or at least that’s what he told Morgana when he was leaving the house. There’s another reason why he wants to be left alone tonight, but it’s not like he can openly talk about that.

He’s made up his mind.

He’s going to read it.

Akira is wary about the whole E rating thing, but it’s not like he hasn’t read about Akechi having sex before: the site is chock full of that stuff, and _Second Best_ can hardly offer something the other works haven’t already shown. It _is_ going to be the first story where the person Akechi gives himself to is Akira, but it doesn’t have to mean anything if Akira doesn’t want it to. It can be what it is: nothing more than someone else’s imagination.

Akira lies on his back and settles as comfortably as he can with his head resting on the slightly raised pillow, then opens the new chapter and treads further into the plot.

The story continues from where it was left off in the previous chapter – in the pouring rain, with the black haired Shujin student leading Akechi out of the shadows of the narrow alleyway into the brightly lit evening street. They hurry down the half-empty sidewalk towards a tall building in the corner, hand in hand, splashes of water under their feet, and all but crash through the main entrance together, leaving watery trails in their wake. The Shujin student grows braver now that he’s positive his affections are being returned, and Akechi goes from highly aggressive to somewhat… submissive. Passive, even.

Akira lowers an eyebrow at that last detail. Moves on.

They press into each other in the elevator. The student slides his thigh between Akechi’s, moans into the pliant mouth beneath his own, and while they kiss, he feels blindly for the button that will send them to his floor and hits it. The doors close.

_His hand returns to Akechi’s neck, trails up to caress his ear and then slides behind it, fingers burying in long damp strands and tugging._

_“Akechi,” he whispers hotly, and Akechi leans in for a slow, obedient kiss, tilting his head to the side and abandoning the last bits of resistance he might have had left inside him. He doesn’t need to struggle anymore, he realizes, he can just give in and let go, belong to someone else at last, have everything he's ever wanted. He can–_

_He could’ve–_

_“Akechi…” he hears his name again, and his thoughts dissolve into something incoherent. He smiles into the kiss and doesn’t answer._

_No… Not like that,_ Akira thinks with a frown. He scrolls down, keeps reading.

_They arrive to their floor and stumble out of the elevator, clinging to each other breathlessly and trying to get to the apartment without breaking up for air. This doesn’t prove to be very efficient, so eventually they have to separate, and Akechi lets himself be dragged to the door where he waits patiently while the other fumbles with his keys._

_By the time they step into the dark apartment, the urge to taste as much of each other as possible is so overwhelming that neither of them bothers to turn on the lights. The door barely gets shut before Akechi’s back hits it._

_“Ah–!”_

_He barely manages to recover from the shove before the student is on him again, claiming his lips over and over and over – and every press of their tongues sets Akechi’s nerves aflame, making him dizzy with mindless desire._

_The student–_

–Akira–

_– presses himself closer to the inviting warmth of Akechi’s body, grinding against his groin with control that’s rapidly melting away. Their kisses get deeper, their moans get louder and their hands greedier, grabbing at everything they can reach;_ Akira _gets a hold of Akechi’s blazer and peels it off, then lets his fingers slide down Akechi’s sides, briefly stopping to squeeze his waist before dropping even lower to grope his ass._

 _The moan Akechi lets out at the hard thrust that follows is downright obscene, and_ Akira _drinks it greedily like water._

_“Akechi…”_

_“Please,” Akechi begs, but it’s difficult to process what exactly he wants to say when_ Akira’s _lips part on his throat, kissing and sucking and **marking** and sending all coherent thoughts out of the window. He pulls _Akira _closer, moves desperately to meet the pace of the other’s hips, and his own are already starting to stutter, trembling, he didn’t realize he was so close–_

_“I’m–!”_

_He comes before the words make it out, a high-pitched whine surging out of him instead. It too gets swallowed by_ Akira’s _ravenous_ _mouth, and_ Akira _trembles with him, groaning, not yet at his limit but clearly not very far behind…_

_Akechi needs to touch him. He needs to do it **right now**._

_“Please, let me…” he offers breathlessly. He takes off his gloves and reaches down with his right hand–_

Akira tosses his phone on the bed. He moves the pillow away and rolls on his stomach, bringing one of his legs up for better access and shuddering as the fabric of his pajama pants rubs against the hard line of his cock. His mind is stuck on the scene, and he doesn’t really give a damn anymore, just sticks his hand into his underwear and starts pumping himself relentlessly.

The scene unfolds further, common sense completely overflown by Akira’s own imagination.

_“Let me,” Akechi says calmly. He takes off his gloves and reaches down with his left hand to undo the fly on Akira’s pants. There’s no reluctance in his movements, no second guessing, only plain certainty as if he knew this was going to happen from day one and planned every detail of it._

_Akira didn’t. Feeling slightly lightheaded, he latches onto Akechi’s upper arms. His eyes can’t decide if they want to linger on Akechi’s face or glance down to where thin fingers are sliding under his clothes to wrap around his throbbing cock, and Akechi notices that, of course. He puts on a small, pretty smile, his right hand rising to Akira’s messy black curls._

_“Look at me,” he says, and then pulls them, **hard**._

_Akira hisses sharply. His body tenses all over. The stark contrast of pain and pleasure sends jolts of electricity down his spine, and he does what he can not to let his vulnerability show._

_“What do you think you’re doing.” He narrows his eyes at Akechi, and the other chuckles darkly in response._

_“What, am I being too rough?” he asks innocently, his smile shaping into something ominous. “Or did you think I would be gentle with you when you’re nothing but a criminal who goes around spreading his false justice? Please. Don’t be ridiculous.”_

_His left hand squeezes uncomfortably tight, and Akira’s breath hitches in his throat. Out of pure impulse, he grabs two fistfuls of Akechi’s shirt and yanks him closer – which, he promptly realizes, was a mistake because their chests are touching now, and there’s no way Akechi won’t feel Akira’s heart slamming against his ribcage like crazy._

_Their eyes lock, and– yes, he can totally feel it. Akira takes a shaky breath._

_“Listen,” he rasps, “I’m not–”_

_The fingers on his cock move again, trailing up its length and closing around the head with just the right amount of pressure. Akechi rubs his thumb against the tip, smears precum all over it, and the only thing that comes out of Akira’s mouth this time is a whimper._

_“Stop talking,” Akechi orders him._

_He uses Akira’s temporary stupor to switch their positions, darting away from the wall and shoving the other into his place. Akira gasps as his back meets the cold surface, struggles to regain his freedom, but Akechi throws his whole weight into the hold and pries Akira’s legs open with his thigh to trap him further._

_“Don’t fight me, Joker,” he growls. “You will lose.”_

_The depth of his voice does things to Akira’s self-control. His whole body shudders with excitement. He considers toying with Akechi’s patience, maybe putting some real effort into breaking free before he surrenders, but Akechi’s mouth closes on the side of his neck, and it becomes difficult to concentrate._

_Akira feels drunk with proximity. His clutch on Akechi’s shirt becomes weaker. The hand in his hair pulls further, forcing him to give more space for marks Akechi is definitely planning to leave all over his throat, and Akira finds himself obeying before he even considers it._

_“Agh–!”_

_He wasn’t expecting a bite. He should have. It sets his nerves on fire, the delicious kind that scorches him from inside, all-consuming, and Akechi hums in amusement, licking the bright mark he’s made before moving to Akira’s jaw and kissing the smooth skin under it._

_“You put too much trust in me,” he remarks, and Akira’s eyes widen, because–_

_–because at this rate he’s actually going to lose. Because he needs to step up his game, and he needs to do so immediately._

_He can’t talk, he can’t fight back, but there is one thing he **can** do, so he does exactly that: goes at it like the rival he is supposed to be. He fully leans into the possessive hold, and his teeth sink into Akechi’s shoulder through the white fabric – deep, nowhere near gentle. Akechi yelps nicely at that; the clench of his fingers on Akira’s hair worsens._

_“You… goddamn–” he grits out, and Akira doesn’t miss the telltale shiver that runs down the other’s body. He doesn’t miss that little twitch against his thigh, either. He smiles against the bite: they’re on the same ground again._

_“Maybe I should be the one to talk about trust,” he teases Akechi with a grin he knows will not be seen, but will be heard perfectly well._

_Akechi lets out a breath._

_“Fine. If you prefer it this way…”_

_The hand on Akira’s cock resumes moving at once – raw, fast, borderline painful and so, so amazing that Akira chokes on his own grin. He barely manages to tuck his face back into the curve of Akechi’s shoulder before he utters a sound too embarrassing for his pride to handle._

_He can’t lose. Not here. Not now. Not when he can feel Akechi’s cock growing hard against him–_

_But Akechi sets a pace that quickly robs him of the last shreds of sanity. The grip he has on Akira is too good, too firm, and all Akira can do is jerk his hips into it, moaning through his clenched teeth, all competitiveness surrendered._

_The hand that was holding his hair drops to his throat and clutches it, forcing him to look up._

_“Come now, Joker,” Akechi says, smirking. “And look at me while you do.”_

The orgasm that washes over Akira is so thorough he feels it in his bones.

***

Once Akira does it once, there’s no stopping it. Opening the latest chapter of _Second Best_ felt like he tried to turn on a faucet but failed to measure his strength and ripped it off instead – there’s water flowing everywhere, rising higher and higher, and he can’t escape to another room because there’s no dam to protect it.

He jerks off on his bed under the blanket. He jerks off on the couch during lunch time. He jerks off in a bathroom stall at school, and once late at night in the restroom of Leblanc, watching one of Akechi’s recorded interviews on the internet. The last one feels like another faucet ripped off clean, but Akira accepts it as it is: he’s been putting his life on the line for months now, he’s seen so much Metaverse shit he could write a series of bestsellers, and compared to what he’s been handling on daily basis, getting hard from Akechi’s voice sometimes is not really that big of a deal.

Accepting this truth as part of himself is perhaps one of the main reasons why Akira retains his calm demeanor when he returns to Leblanc one evening and finds Akechi occupying one of the bar stools with a cup of coffee in his hands. He’s chatting with Sojiro about something, and as soon as he spots Akira at the entrance, his ever-present smile mellows into one Akira doesn’t remember him wear during any of his interviews.

“Perhaps we can talk over some coffee?” Akechi offers after they exchange their greetings, and Akira is inclined to take the opportunity to get to know him better and maybe play a few games of chess when Sojiro cuts in with an alternative.

“If you two are tired, maybe you could use a bath more than a coffee,” he says, gesturing at the street behind the windows. “There’s a bathhouse right there.”

And that’s how Akira ends up sitting in front of an almost naked Akechi in a steaming bathtub that is somehow completely devoid of other people despite the late hour.

There’s this initial moment of awkwardness Akira feels when he sees more of Akechi’s skin than he usually would be able to, but it’s not too bad, he keeps his imagination on a short leash. His perception and empathy stay sharp as they should, noticing things that are much more important than any of his groundless fantasies can be – like how Akechi sighs as water envelops his body and rolls his shoulders before slowly letting them relax, all while looking happier than Akira has ever seen him be.

“This feels wonderful,” Akechi outright beams. “It’s been a while...”

And maybe Akira’s vision is blurred by the amount of flesh and muscles his eyes can’t quite stop clinging to, but it feels like right now Akechi couldn’t be farther away from his Detective Prince self.

The feeling becomes even more prominent when Akechi brings up an unusually personal topic – the result of the soothing atmosphere and absolute absence of other people around them, no doubt – and in the span of minutes Akira learns more about Akechi’s childhood life than his entire fan base has learned ever since he first appeared on TV. To think that the famous Detective Prince is a fatherless son of a prostitute that died while he was a child… Akira can’t imagine how badly the audience would react if this information got leaked somehow.

The topic itself seems to be so sore for Akechi that it drags him through a variety of emotions before he suddenly catches himself in the middle of it all and directs the conversation elsewhere, smiling brilliantly like he hasn’t just told Akira about the ruins of what could have been his happy family, about the cruelty of human nature that sent him into multiple foster homes only to have them spit him back out like useless garbage.

Just like Akira’s own family spat him out when he became a burden for them.

“Are you alright?” he hears Akechi ask. “I know the hot water can make people dizzy…”

Akira watches him in the eye. He can’t pry. Not this time. The _Second Best_ version of him would, as would a few other versions he met later on, but he can’t bring himself to ask for more, not when Akechi has already opened up this much and now looks like he wants nothing else but to return to trivial chit chat.

 _One step at a time,_ Akira tells himself.

“I’m staying until you’re ready,” he says out loud.

“I take pretty long baths,” Akechi warns him. Lazy notes of playful competitiveness slip into his voice. “You sure you can handle it?”

“Try me,” Akira spurs him on, stretching his back.

_One step at a time…_

Contrary to what Akira was expecting when he and Akechi were venturing towards the bathhouse, he doesn’t have any trouble keeping indecent thoughts at bay. He still wants to touch Akechi, but in a way that would show a desire of another kind. A better kind.

A warmer kind.

***

The Hawaii trip that comes a week later is a welcome break from both the busy life of Tokyo and the exciting but terribly draining adventures of the Phantom Thieves in Mementos. There are hordes of people here too, but no one is in a hurry, or about to stick their claws into Akira’s chest, or in dire need of a heart change, or asking him to solve their problems while they sit back and watch, and instead of tall buildings and countless flashing train windows there are broad beaches and high palm trees everywhere. Even the air smells different: fresher, tastier, more liberating somehow…

So it doesn’t surprise Akira at all when on the second day of the trip he returns to his bed after taking a shower only to find a dozen messages invading his phone.

 _It’s about time,_ he thinks, shaking his head at them. He picks up the phone.

There are ten texts from Futaba – something connected to the fanfiction website forum, from what Akira’s eye caught flashing on top of the screen. Among the remaining Phantom Thieves she’s the only one aware of Akira’s secret infatuation with it because she couldn’t keep her devilish hacker fingers away from his browser history (“lmaooooo I knew u were into it!!”), so maybe she decided to troll him out of boredom or something. The two remaining messages are… from Akechi, unexpectedly.

Akira’s instant thought is to check Akechi’s messages first, but Futaba’s are still piling up, so he opens their chat to see what’s going on.

[ **Oracle:** remember ur favorite forum? ]

[ **Oracle:** so yeah, they discovered ur name ]

[ **Oracle:** someone from shujin sold u out ]

[ **Oracle:** the photo thread is going insane ]

[ **Oracle:** can’t rly do anything about it ]

[ **Oracle:** they’re piling up everything they know about u ]

[ **Oracle:** which isn’t much, but u should rly be careful from now on ]

[ **Oracle:** some ppl aren’t happy with u ]

[ **Oracle:** specifically those who think ur stealing the detective prince away from the pt leader ]

[ **Oracle:** which is fcking stupid but ]

[ **Oracle:** u know how some ppl are ]

_“First they will stalk you and take pictures, share them online, and then they will separate into two armies, one of them thirsting after you, or us together, and the other mixing your name with dirt,”_ Akechi said. It looks like that stage has begun.

 _Whatever_ , Akira thinks. He assured Akechi he wouldn’t care, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do. None of them will ever be able to see under the glasses anyway, and if they’re stubborn… well, he has the means to handle that.

[ **Akira:** yeah ]

[ **Akira:** thanks for letting me know ]

[ **Akira:** keep an eye on them if you can ]

[ **Akira:** and I’ll be mentally preparing here ]

[ **Oracle:** yeshhhh ]

Akira switches to the other chat window. The timing is telling, he can take a pretty solid guess on what Akechi’s texts are going to be about.

[ **Goro Akechi:** You might already be aware of this, but in case you are not, I have bad news. ]

[ **Goro Akechi:** Two hours ago someone from your school revealed your identity on the website. You realize the full extent of what that means, don’t you? ]

Akira kicks off his slippers and climbs on the bed, pulling up the few pillows he has in his temporary possession to get comfortable. Even though it’s been quite a while since he and Akechi met up to discuss the content of said website, and he’s resting in a neat hotel room in Hawaii now, he still feels like he never left that café table. He feels like he’s sitting in front of Akechi again, witnessing that small shift in his expression, the precise moment when he asked his subtle question. The moment they stepped over it.

Akira knows how he should respond.

[ **Akira:** Took them long enough. ]

[ **Akira:** Are they bothering you with it? ]

Fifteen seconds or so later dots appear on the other side of the screen, hopping up and down before Akechi answers with:

[ **Goro Akechi:** It’s nothing I can’t handle. But what are you planning to do? I imagine you’re not used to this kind of attention. ]

[ **Akira:** I answered that question once, didn’t I? Nothing has changed. ]

He bites his lip. Nothing has changed indeed. Unless…

[ **Akira:** Unless you want me to change something? ]

This time, it takes longer for Akechi to reply. Not one minute, not two – the dots are jumping on his side of the screen but seem to have trouble forming into words – and Akira frowns, his back sinking into the pillows.

Then the dots disappear altogether, and he drops his phone on the bed only to pick it back up seconds later.

He’s starting to get nervous. He doesn’t like to be. He wishes he could have this conversation face to face, to be able to measure the weight of Akechi’s expressions at least.

He gets an answer, eventually.

[ **Goro Akechi:** No. But it’s not about me. ]

[ **Akira:** Are you doubting me? ]

[ **Goro Akechi:** Not at all. I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. ]

_Yes, I’m doubting you,_ Akira reads between the lines. He starts typing a little too forcefully, and the dull sounds of his fingers hitting the screen fill the otherwise silent room.

[ **Akira:** Yes, I am perfectly aware of what I’m getting myself into. People can be delusional. People can be dumb. People can get aggressive. And if you can handle it, I can’t see why I wouldn’t be able to. ]

[ **Akira:** Besides, the hype will die down like every other thing that came before it. Nothing sticks forever. ]

[ **Akira:** Unless it’s you and me we’re talking about, because I’m not walking away from my rival, and neither are you, right? ]

Dots. On and off. The wait is torturous. Akira wonders if he said too much but at the same time knows he said just enough, and then…

[ **Goro Akechi:** Obviously. ]

[ **Akira:** Good. ]

He nods, his lips stretching in a small, satisfied smile. He lets his hand fall back on the bed and simply lies there for a while, wishing once again that he was standing in front of Akechi right now, watching his expression shift into something similar to Akira’s own.

Akira could brew some coffee for them. Maybe drag Akechi into a game of chess in one of the booths. Maybe grab his tie when they’re done playing and pull him over the table to–

He sits up abruptly.

 _The site,_ he thinks. _I haven’t checked the site._

He swaps the chat window away without saying goodbye – neither he nor Akechi ever waste their time on doing that – and goes directly to the web browser. The photo thread is bookmarked and on top where he can easily find it, and when Akira opens it, the drastic increase in page numbers bolts straight into his eyes.

Tens of pages, hundreds of replies. No fresh ‘couple’ photos due to Akechi’s busy schedule and Akira’s recent departure from Tokyo, but there’s one of Akira by himself that was presumably taken a few days back at school. On it, he’s sitting at his desk, with one hand resting on the table and the other propping up his head, and it looks like he’s struggling to stay awake. Judging by the state of his hair and barely visible half-lidded eyes, he must have already dozed off sometime before the picture was taken.

_His name is Kurusu Akira,_ the comment below the photo states. _He transferred to our school this year, and no one knows him very well. He’s passive and doesn’t talk much, but from what I heard, he’s pretty smart. Anyone got more info?_

 _The guy’s from my class,_ one of the comments below reads. _He’s so quiet I used to forget he existed, lol. Don’t see him around outside of classes, I guess he doesn’t go to any clubs?_

_saw him hangin out with a few ppl, he has a v nice smile, I mean, y’all can see, he’s smiling on all the pics except this last one lmaooo no wonder Akechi-kun fell for him_

_He does look attractive. Can’t decide if it’s his hair, his eyes, the lighting or just everything combined. But you have to know what you’re looking for; there are so many black haired guys with glasses attending our school I could easily look past this one._

_True!_

Akira scrolls down, observing the stream of comments. Most of them are focusing on either his appearance or the relationship between him and Akechi, and some try to decipher his character based on these two factors, but just like Futaba said, no one knows anything personal about him. Also just like Futaba said, there are some severely annoyed individuals in the thread who leave messages like:

_What the hell does Akechi see in this guy?? He’s so plain, looks like every second guy on the street, literally NOTHING compared to the PT Leader! Who does he think he is? Akechi’s friend? How fucking dare you?! Go back to where you came from, you stupid shit, Akechi doesn’t need you!_

Or:

_This guy can fuck off and die in a curb somewhere, hands off Akechi-kun, he belongs to another man!_

Or his favorite:

_Let’s ask the Phantom Thieves to change his heart before he hurts our Detective Prince! It’s SO obvious he’s hanging around Akechi-kun just because Akechi-kun is a celebrity! This Kurusu is just as twisted as the other targets of PT!_

Akira outright laughs at that one. He expected some people to get salty, but he didn’t think they would be furious enough to suggest a change of heart for someone whose only crime is spending time with their beloved Detective Prince.

He makes a mental note to talk to Mishima when the boy returns to their hotel room from wherever he currently is, and ask him to forward every ‘Akira Kurusu’ request to the Phantom Thieves. Maybe he and Futaba can trace the request senders so that the group can check Mementos for their Shadows later. If push comes to shove, Akira can defend himself, and he can do so cleanly.

With that thought he continues scrolling until he stumbles upon another comment:

_Guys, the author of **Second Best** is making changes to the story! They’re fixing the name and some scenes to match the character you guys described in here! The site now also has Akira’s name as a tag, so feel free to use it!_

Akira hops on the website tab. _Second Best_ is the most popular piece of fiction contributed to it so far, with hundreds of reviews and thousands of likes, and it sits neatly at the top of the story list. He looks at the description – the change is there just like the comment said it would be, and then there’s also a new chapter update.

Akira taps on it – a fairly big author note greets him.

_Ok guys, listen here. Now that we know who our precious black haired Shujin student really is, I’m making a few changes. I’m gonna use his name from now on, that goes without saying, but I’m also gonna be fixing some of the scenes to better fit the personality he’s supposed to have according to people who met him irl._

_That said, I want to ask people who’ve been leaving rude comments in the photo thread: are you guys mentally stable? I’ve seen someone suggest a heart change for Kurusu-kun, why would you write such a thing? You need to realize that everything that’s been posted here on this site is nothing but fiction; you can enjoy it but you can’t go around accusing Kurusu-kun for being Akechi-kun’s friend! Come on, ppl, leave them be... Akechi-kun decides what he wants, and you gotta respect his choices. Don’t be assholes, mkay?_

_Now, all of that aside, prepare yourselves, my dear readers! This chapter is going to end with a BLAST_

Akira has a bad feeling about that last part of the note, but he proceeds with reading anyway. The worst thing that could have happened has already happened, and he doubts anything can top it.

So he goes through a fluffy waking up scene that happens the morning after the Detective Prince and the black haired Shujin student – now Akira Kurusu – become intimate for the first time, then follows the pair as they attempt to sort out their feelings and taste the benefits of their newfound relationship. It’s somewhat… difficult to process the text when his and Akechi’s names are popping up everywhere and their personalities still don’t match the ones they have in real life, and he has to stop reading here and there to allow his brain to catch up.

And then the chapter ending drops on his head like a brick.

_Akechi falls to his knees, trembling, his fingers clenching around the dark fabric of a costume he’s only seen a couple of times before – far, always so far away, always out of reach. The costume that belongs to one single person, the person he’s been fixated on for months, the person that ruined his life._

_The person he spent the night with._

_Standing before him in the doorway, tall and yet somehow small and utterly harmless, Akira Kurusu smiles bitterly._

_“Congratulations,” he says. “You have finally found me. I’m the leader of the Phantom Thieves, the man you’ve been trying to catch this entire time.”_

Akira lowers his phone and sinks further into the pillows.

He resists the urge to bang his head against the wall.

***

The flight back to Tokyo takes its toll. By the time Akira stumbles into Leblanc with a colorful lei hanging from his neck and his fingers wrapped around the handle of his suitcase, he’s so affected by jet lag he barely keeps himself upright. The distant part of his mind wonders how exactly he managed to stay awake through the entire journey back home.

There aren’t any customers in Leblanc at this particular hour, and his friends have all scattered to their homes, so he greets the three people that have become closest to what he would call his family and is about to head up to the attic when Akechi’s voice invades his ears.

 _“I can sense some chivalry behind the actions of the Phantom Thieves,”_ it says. Akira looks up at the TV screen on the other side of the room, and a fuzzy feeling settles in his chest at the sight of Akechi’s face. It hasn’t even been a week, Akira has all the photo thread pictures saved on his phone, not to mention the amount of fan stories stored in his memory, and yet seeing the guy like this makes him feel like they haven’t spent any time together in centuries. Despite feeling half-dead, he wants to meet up, to play a couple of 701s, or some billiards, or maybe good old chess–

 _“Your stance seems to have softened,”_ the show host pulls Akira out of his thoughts. He glues his eyes back to the screen where Akechi sighs quietly, looking troubled by what he’s about to say.

_“This doesn’t change the fact that they are dangerous. However… No, I shouldn’t say any more…”_

_“Come on, you can say it,”_ the host presses on. Something occurs to him, and he winks. _“Might it be that something happened between you that we are not aware of but would love to know? Rumors say that you may have a bond with the leader of the Phantom Thieves...”_

Akira stares at the screen.

Akechi blinks at the host.

 _“I… I don’t quite–”_ he starts, but the latter interrupts him.

_“In fact, a certain website has been getting a lot of attention lately, and I’m sure everyone would really appreciate it if you elaborated on that.”_

_“I’m…”_ Akechi stops mid-sentence. Tilts his head, thinking.

And then he smiles, and Akira is impressed by how quickly he’s able to recover in such a situation. It’s painfully obvious that no one gave Akechi any heads-up about the upcoming topic – shows like this always want a genuine reaction – and yet it appears that he has everything under control.

 _“While I am aware of the existence of the website you’re talking about, sadly I cannot say I had enough time to visit it myself,”_ Akechi says smoothly. _“As for the first question – no, I am not acquainted with any of the Phantom Thieves. If I was, the police would be acquainted with them as well.”_

The host nods impatiently. At this point it’s clear that he wants to fish out as much information about the website from the Detective Prince as he can. _“If you don’t mind me asking, what do you think about the existence of the website itself?”_

Akechi takes a moment to think about that question.

 _“Well, I cannot properly judge it without having looked at it once,”_ he says reasonably, still smiling, _“but as I’ve been repeatedly told so far, a lot of people seem to enjoy it. It’s not violating the law in any way, or my privacy, so I’m not against it.”_

 _“It’s not all flowers and rainbows, though,”_ the host persists. _“We have been informed of a – war would be the best word? – of a war that has been unwinding there in the past few days. A war that’s circling around one of your friends, if I’m not mistaken. What can you say about that?”_

It might be Akira’s imagination, but he thinks he sees the corner of Akechi’s smile twitch.

 _“Ah, that,”_ he says in a perfectly level voice. _“I am not yet fully aware of the situation that surrounds the website community, and I haven’t received any complaints, but I would kindly ask people to respect each other and my friend too. Don’t make me come after you, alright?”_

He winks at the camera playfully. The host laughs.

 _“I’m pretty sure a lot of young ladies would love for you to come after them!”_ he says jokingly, and Akechi chuckles but doesn’t otherwise react.

“Bleh,” Futaba says, and Akira kind of agrees with her.

The show gets wrapped up after this. Akechi is all beams and sunshine, but he’s too smart to give answers that can provoke further questions, and the host reluctantly lets it go.

As Akira watches the show give way to a string of flashy ads, his thoughts get heavier and heavier now that there’s nothing interesting to keep him from yawning. Futaba, who’s been waiting for his attention to discuss the upcoming Phantom Thieves’ tasks, has no other option but to let him get his sleep.

***

The days that follow Akira’s return to Tokyo bring an indecent amount of chaos with them. Apparently, everything has to go wrong, be it poorly executed Mementos ventures or Akira’s school life that’s supposed to be dull and uneventful.

The principle of their school dies. Morgana suddenly leaves Akira’s side without giving any proper explanations. Tons of requests to change his heart invade the Phan-Site, and people are starting to notice him too – some of them even have the boldness to walk up to him and, best case scenario, strike a conversation.

While it has never been difficult for Akira to hide in a crowd – that’s something he’s been doing on purpose for months now and still keeps at it with great success – school is a place where he can’t really blend in that well, not with other students looking specifically for him and knowing which classroom he belongs to. And all, _all_ of them have two things on their minds: the ratio of their precious Detective Prince in Akira’s love life and whether or not Akira is a Phantom Thief.

 _‘I’m not a Phantom Thief and we’re just friends with Akechi’_ has left his mouth on so many occasions already it might be the first thing he automatically mumbles if someone forces him awake in the middle of the night.

Mementos are especially disastrous. The deeper the Phantom Thieves descend, the harsher their surroundings and enemies become, and the weirder the rooms they sometimes enter. The fanfiction website is so deeply intertwined with the minds of youth at this point that Akira finds traces of it everywhere in the Shadows’ hive, and he’s lucky if they appear family friendly. The other members of the group are both concerned and unsettled by these discoveries but do their best not to stall their progress.

And then comes a day when they have to enter yet another adult’s Palace just to accidentally run into Morgana coaching a new Persona user in one of its sci-fi inspired rooms. The girl looks harmless, absolutely out of her element, and under normal circumstances her audacity to claim that she is the real Phantom Thief would be laughable and endearing, but today Akira’s patience has had enough.

He wraps up the infiltration. Doesn’t know how he manages to keep his calm façade all the way back to Leblanc and through the post-infiltration meeting. As soon as everyone is finally gone and the café sign is flipped from OPEN to CLOSED, Akira feels so mentally drained he just slides down the door, not even bothering to change out of his school uniform. He wishes his problems would come at him one by one. He wishes they would give him a break. It’s hard having to deal with so much pressure when beneath everything he’s still just a high school student.

His phone squeaks with a new message. Akira rubs the bridge of his nose and turns on the screen.

[ **Goro Akechi:** Care for a game of chess? ]

His heart skips a beat. He wasn’t expecting Akechi to text him so late.

Akira feels like he hasn’t talked to him in years and hasn’t seen him in much longer than that, too wrapped up with getting recognized during the day and too busy clearing out Mementos floors during the night.

Now, however… The possibility of having a friendly chat with Akechi, with the person who ironically gets Akira most and whose company Akira genuinely missed, spreads like balm over Akira’s frayed nerves. He may be feeling a little too worn out to play games, but he hopes he can lure Akechi to Leblanc with some good old coffee.

His fingers jump from letter to letter as he types a reply.

[ **Akira:** It’s kind of late, I don’t know if I’m feeling like having my ass handed to me, but I could make you a cup of coffee if that’s acceptable? ]

[ **Goro Akechi:** Absolutely. I’m on my way. ]

Akira lets out a sigh he’s been holding unconsciously for days now, his head leaning back against the sturdy glass door. With everything that’s been happening lately, with decisions and changes that are out of his control, hanging out with Akechi sounds like a break sent from heaven.

Some wary part of him says he shouldn’t trust anything good coming his way, but Akira can’t bring himself to listen to it. He believes Akechi will not disappoint him – after all, deep down, despite their opposing roles and opinions, they are very much alike. Both of them know what it feels like to be betrayed and abandoned, both of them know better than to show their weaknesses to other people, both of them struggle to prove their worth to the rest of the world – and that's constantly making them gravitate towards each other, coaxing them to subconsciously relax in each other’s presence.

The thought barely starts unfolding in Akira’s head when he hears a knock on the door.

Immediately, he snaps out of it and scrambles to his feet, patting invisible dust off his clothes and looking behind the glass to see Akechi standing on the other side. He’s wearing a casual white button up shirt and a curious expression, and Akira bites the inside of his cheek, realizing he’s been caught sitting by the door like a pet dog waiting for its master.

“It couldn’t have been more than five minutes,” he says as impassively as he can when he opens the door, and Akechi nods at him with a smile.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he explains.

“Come on in.” Akira steps aside to let him pass.

While Akechi settles on one of the stools, Akira hops behind the counter and grabs his apron more out of habit than necessity. The phone he’s keeping in the front pocket of his school pants vibrates with incoming messages, but instead of checking them he turns off sound notifications. Judging by the few pop-up windows Akira saw on top of the screen, it’s more of what he and the rest of the group talked about earlier, and he’s doesn’t want to return to that, not now.

“Are you hungry? I could make you some curry too,” he says without looking back, reaching out for two clean cups.

“No, thank you,” Akechi’s voice comes from behind him. “I see you’re still wearing your school uniform. It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Akira lets out a heavy breath. He doesn’t want to elaborate on anything, and Akechi doesn’t ask him to, so he focuses on brewing the bitter drink. Soft stillness settles in the room, broken rarely by swift movements of his hands as he adds ingredients for richer flavor, and for the first time since this morning Akira feels tension leave his sore muscles.

He doesn’t have to think about problems. He doesn’t have to concern himself with the world that exists outside of Leblanc. He doesn’t have to swipe through his masks to please someone else’s taste because there’s no one but him and Akechi here, and Akechi has never shown any need for guidance, reassurance or any other things people love to ask from Akira on daily basis.

Perhaps dropping his walls in front of Akechi like that is a mistake, but Akira feels so exhausted he pushes the thought away for later consideration. Tonight he doesn’t want to think about anything other than the two of them being here, in this dimply lit room, in a place he calls his home, drinking freshly-made coffee together.

“Here.”

He places one cup in front of Akechi and brings the other to his own lips. Takes a sip. The drink is not too hot and not too cold, the temperature just perfect to warm him up without burning his tongue in the process – masterfully brewed, all thanks to Sojiro’s generous lessons.

After mentally patting himself on the back for a job well done, Akira considers sitting next to Akechi and maybe agreeing to play that round of chess, but in the end remains where he is, on the other side of the counter, watching. Akechi closes his eyes as the rough taste of coffee invades his mouth, and when he reopens them, he smiles another smile, small and private.

“Delicious. Your coffee has always been my favorite,” he murmurs quietly, setting down the cup, and the praise that was supposed to fuel Akira’s self-esteem changes its course to flow directly into heart. “Please don’t tell Sakura-san I said that, okay?”

“My lips are sealed,” Akira promises him with a wink. He leans away and rests his back against the shelves, careful not to disturb the glass jars standing there. The sweet, fuzzy feeling stirred to life by Akechi’s appreciation envelops him, and he allows himself to succumb to the harmony of the moment, worries floating to the back of his mind where they gradually subside into indistinct white noise.

He takes another sip of his coffee. Savors it.

“So, how does it feel to be the leader of the Phantom Thieves?” Akechi asks in the most conversational manner possible, and Akira nearly spits it back out.

_What–?!_

He almost blurts the word out loud, but thankfully has enough composure to hold it on his tongue. His pulse must be sky-rocketing right now – it’s a miracle if Akechi cannot hear it thundering under Akira’s skin.

 _Okay, wait, you have to calm down,_ Akira tells himself.

His brain kicks in at once, supplying him with useful observations. Akechi doesn’t really mean it in a serious way, can’t be meaning it in a serious way – the tone is too light and he’s just sitting there with a cup of coffee in his hand and not trying to force handcuffs around Akira’s wrists to drag him to the police office later. There aren’t any officers barging into Leblanc either, so…

No. It has to be something else.

Akira doesn’t let himself move an inch, regarding his guest with what he hopes resembles slight puzzlement rather than nervous confusion. He’s pondering, his perception and memory mixing together all compatible pieces of information, and then realization suddenly comes to him and pulls him up to his feet, bringing back his confidence.

Akira relaxes his stance. Gulps a mouthful of dark liquid to swallow the lump in his throat and smirks Joker-ishly.

“Satisfying,” he says, holding Akechi’s stare. “I have a loyal team of friends, people who see how flawed the justice system of this country is, and together we change humanity for the better. We’re honorable and brave, and we leave no cry for help without our attention; in our eyes, all people are equal and deserve to be helped. Good enough? Then it’s my turn to ask. How did it feel to find out that the man you gave yourself to is the criminal you’ve been fruitlessly chasing around for months?”

Akechi’s eyebrows rise at the question. Amusement settles on his features, and he shifts on the bar stool, sliding one leg on top of the other and leaning more towards the counter. Towards Akira. His free hand rises to the cup, fingers wrapping around it as he brushes his thumb over the white circle of the top.

The game is on.

“Do you want me to answer the way the fictional me would?” Akechi asks pleasantly. “Or would you rather hear what _I_ felt when I read about it?”

“Oh, I know what the fictional you felt,” Akira assures him. “Sad. Angry. Betrayed by the one he fully trusted, the one he showed his real colors to – the person he was sure would stay by his side and never turn him down. And even though he got lied to, he is still unwilling to give up on his Akira, the leader of the Phantom Thieves, the love of his life. It’s ironic, isn’t it? That he has to battle against his own justice to preserve what happiness he was able to achieve.”

“I see you’ve given my character a thorough examination,” Akechi says as he takes another unhurried sip from his cup. His fingers drum against the cool surface of the counter several times and then fall flat on it. “Well, then, answer me this. What do you think I would have done in his stead?”

“You…”

Akira takes a moment to think. It is a difficult question, and he has to remember that Akechi is talking theories, situations that are purely hypothetical, and he doesn’t know that the author of _Second Best_ accidentally pointed at the correct person, unmasking Akira in front of the whole blissfully unaware world. Akechi doesn’t know he’s sitting opposite of the leader of the Phantom Thieves.

_Or does he?_

Akira’s eyes widen slightly. It’s certainly not impossible: Akechi _is_ his rival. He’s smart and perceptive and meticulous about the tiniest things, and he should be able to notice the hints and uncover Akira’s secret identity…

But maybe he’s thinking too deeply into this. Maybe it’s all about mere fanfiction.

“It’s no easy question,” Akira admits. “The fictional you put himself in a situation he wasn’t prepared to face. He got to a point where he valued another person as strongly as he valued his justice, committed to that person both physically and mentally. If you attached yourself to someone like he did, would you deem your future together worthy enough to let it overshadow your justice? I… don’t know.”

“And what about you then,” Akechi speaks up, watching Akira closely. “If you were in the shoes of the leader of the Phantom Thieves, would you surrender your justice for a chance of living a happy life with someone you fall in love with?”

Akira thinks again. Imagines someone whom he would be able to confide in, to believe in, to trust without a shadow of doubt – someone sharp, cunning, able to keep him on his toes and at the same time show understanding when it’s needed. Someone whose justice would collide with his own so hard he would have no other option but to make a choice.

 _There is a person who fits that description,_ he realizes. _Of course…_

He closes his eyes. Rests against the shelves. Imagines years later, him all grown up and in college, him becoming Akechi’s assistant and then his partner in solving crimes, them buying an apartment after finally having saved enough money. Not too big, just enough for two people. With a view they would enjoy every morning after waking up – both sleepy, with messy hair, laughing quietly and holding each other in their arms.

Then he imagines years later again, but this time it’s people he has on his mind, those he could have saved but chose not to. He sees them suffering at the hands of twisted criminals powerful enough to never surface on police radars, seeking salvation but never finding it… or finding it in their untimely death. He remembers Shiho, Ann, Yusuke, Futaba, all the students that got indebted to Kaneshiro, countless others…

Deciding is harder than he thought it would be.

“…no,” he answers after what feels like eternity. He doesn’t know if he’s being sincere. He hopes he won’t have to find out.

“Neither would I,” Akechi tells him.

The situation is not real, but both Akechi’s words and his own answer sting – despite everything, Akechi is Akira’s friend, his almost best friend, and Akira would hate to lose the bond they’ve created. He’s sure Akechi wouldn’t want to lose it either even if he found out the truth, and who knows, maybe they won’t have to lose it at all? Maybe they can shape something new out of their justices combined and work together. The leader of the Phantom Thieves and the Detective Prince, side by side.

Akira finds the prospect of that to be quite exciting.

“Well, now we know that the author wrote you wrong.” He leans away from the shelves and puts his empty cup on the counter. “Although it does break my heart to know you would’ve thrown me behind bars after all the support I provided, and especially after the magical night we spent in each other’s arms. Which reminds me…”

Akira is stepping onto a minefield, but he needs the distraction, and the curiosity that’s been nagging at him for god knows how long demands to be sated. They’ve both admitted to reading the story anyway, so there’s nothing wrong with sharing their opinions, right?

“I thought the presence of… intimate scenes would deter you from reading,” he says carefully. “How come it didn’t?”

Akechi leans into the backrest and crosses his hands over his chest. Amusement slips back on his face, his eyes gleaming dangerously.

“I could ask you the same question, you know,” he says with a smile.

“Yeah, but I asked you first,” Akira counters.

“I suppose that is true.”

Akechi tilts his head to the side, and it doesn’t escape Akira’s attention how his eyes briefly dart away from his face in– what? Uncertainty? Tension? He can’t tell for sure. But it’s something new, an emotion he has never seen on Akechi before, and he can’t wait to hear the answer.

Then the emotion vanishes, and Akechi looks at him again, the intensity of his stare pinning Akira to the spot.

“You read it all first and had the courage to admit it to my face,” he says in a low voice that goes straight to Akira’s core. “So I assume you won’t feel repulsed if I do the same and admit that I’m not against reading that kind of content, either.”

A shudder surges down Akira’s spine.

He swallows thickly.

Akechi brings the cup back to his lips, finishing his drink calmly as if his confession didn’t just fry all of Akira’s circuits, and Akira stands before him, silent, stunned, until his fingers begin to twitch restlessly in a strong urge to grip something. He settles on mirroring Akechi’s pose, crossing his hands, his nails digging into his upper arms.

“I didn’t have very high expectations for the website in the beginning,” Akechi continues, unaware of what he’s doing to Akira’s brain. Or maybe aware but not giving a shit about it – Akira asked for it himself, after all. “No one knows who the leader of the Phantom Thieves is, or how the group operates, so reading those blind attempts would be a waste of my time. When they found out about you, however… well, all I can say is things became more interesting.”

 _I’m not against reading that kind of content,_ echoes in Akira’s head.

He nods.

“This was the reason that drove you to read that _Second Best_ story, wasn’t it?” Akechi asks him, leaning forward and folding both hands on the counter. “You were the first real person to appear by the Detective Prince’s side apart from the many-faced leader of the Phantom Thieves.”

“Yes,” Akira breathes out.

He watches Akechi speak, searches his body language for cracks that would betray any signs of vulnerability, and something swells inside him hotly when he can’t find anything of the sort. Akechi acts like what he’s just said is no big deal for him, like he doesn’t see anything special about openly admitting he’s not against the idea of Akira pounding his ass into the mattress, but it’s bullshit, it has to be. That kind of content, it can’t mean _nothing_ to him.

And then it hits. Akechi offered Akira his company – here, in Leblanc, knowing full well that Sojiro had already left. It took him just a few minutes to appear at the doorstep of the café because he ‘was in the neighborhood’. He started this entire conversation himself, perfectly aware that it would imply his acquaintance with the story that includes him and Akira in a sexual relationship.

The heat inside Akira simmers, spreading down slowly. All of this was planned. Akechi came here with a specific purpose and is currently testing the waters as nonchalantly as he can.

“I was curious about it too,” Akechi is saying. He raises a hand to press his open palm against his chin, his pinky finger brushing over his lower lip. “So, eventually I gave in and read the story. The author did their best to describe both me and you as closely to our original characters as they could, and of course they were way off, but I was so far into the plot that I decided to keep reading anyway. As for the explicit scenes you were wondering about… I admit, they were not bad. But they weren’t accurate either. I, for example, would never let anyone push me into submission, least of all the leader of the Phantom Thieves.”

Seconds melt into each other.

It takes a moment for Akira to register that Akechi has stopped talking.

His imagination is going haywire. Pictures of Akechi are rapidly flashing in front of his eyes: Akechi lying in his bed at night, reading the first chapter, Akechi frowning at inaccurate descriptions of himself and Akira as the story progresses, Akechi getting to the part where his fictional counterpart throws Akira at the wall and kisses him for the first time. Akechi getting to the good part. Akechi becoming frustrated at inaccurate descriptions again. Akechi dropping his phone on the bed, sticking his hand into his pants. Akechi realizing it’s not enough.

“I see,” Akira responds, voice unsteady. He’s figured it out, good for him, but he should stop picturing these things. Akechi is sitting _right here_ – it’s not the best time to think with his dick no matter how badly it might want to do the thinking.

_I’m not against reading that kind of content._

_What have you come here for,_ Akira wants to ask him. He also wants to ask other things, dirty things, things like _‘how many times did you jerk off thinking about me’_ or _‘did you imagine my hand stroking your cock instead of yours’_ or _‘do you want to feel the difference because I don’t mind touching you’_.

 _Stop,_ he orders himself. _Stop thinking about it before you lose it–_

Akechi rises from the bar stool. Akira’s hazy eyes follow him.

He doesn’t expect Akechi to reach out towards his face. The touch feels electric.

“Look at you,” Akechi murmurs, pushing Akira’s chin up with his fingers. His smile grows darker. “I haven’t even said anything perverted yet. Just what kind of thoughts have you been having lately, Akira?”

Akira parts his lips slightly. He doesn’t jerk away from the grasp, stays perfectly still.

“I have a feeling you already know the answer to this question,” he says steadily. “I also have a feeling the same thoughts visited your head, too.”

“And if so, then what?” Akechi asks.

Akira grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him in, crashing their mouths together.

He’s read about kissing Akechi countless times. Let vivid descriptions seep through his pupils and fester among his thoughts, poisoning them, making him wonder how it would really feel to have Akechi’s lips pressed to his own.

Nothing he read about ever came close to this. No words could relay the warmth of Akechi’s breath on his skin, the slide of his silky hair against Akira’s cheeks or the intoxicating scent Akira breathes in now that they’re so close – it’s so sharp, so incredibly _Akechi_ , and he can’t help drawing it in, more and more, until his senses are completely overwhelmed. Shifting his head, Akira adjusts the angle and slots their mouths better. Captures Akechi’s upper lip with his own.

Akechi hums into the kiss, and as Akira tugs at the white fabric to bring him even closer, pain flares up between them abruptly, making him hiss and pull away.

Akira lets go of the shirt. His hand jumps up, thumb tracing the stinging spot on his lower lip – it comes away wet, drops of red a stark contrast against his fair skin.

Akechi laughs.

“Did you miss everything I revealed to you so generously just a minute ago?” he asks slyly, eyes alight with disobedience. “I told you, I would never let anyone push me into submission. Or did you think you were an exception?”

“I thought you wanted this,” Akira rasps.

“And that gave you an excuse to act without my permission?”

Akira squints his eyes. The words are harsh but he senses no malicious bite behind them – Akechi must be toying with him, delighted by the fact that Akira lost his cool faster than he could.

 _But that’s not quite true, is it,_ Akira thinks, his tongue darting out to lick away the blood that’s forming on the cut. Akechi’s eyes follow the movement, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess what he’s thinking about.

“You touched me first,” Akira reminds him. “That was my excuse.”

Akechi’s expression falters at that statement. He looks away, fixing the collar of his shirt.

“That’s irrelevant.”

“I beg to differ.”

Akira throws a smug grin at him and moves away from the counter, snatching their empty cups along the way to wash them in the sink. Cold water pours on his hands, soothing, and he takes his time to sort out his raging thoughts; judging by the silence that settles behind him, Akechi does the same.

All incisive banter aside, they’ve just crossed the line. There’s no taking it back, and they can’t pretend it never happened: both of them know what they want, and all there’s left to do is make a decision.

It shouldn’t be easy. Akechi is a threat to the Phantom Thieves, entering a relationship with him would not only betray their expectations and undermine their trust, but also put Akira in a situation he can’t fully control, one that could lead him into the detective’s clutch someday. Akira already has a hunch about how that would go thanks to their earlier conversation…

But instead of fearing the idea, he finds himself ignited by it. Instead of shaking from anxiety, his hands tremble in anticipation.

He puts the cups where they belong. Reaches back to untie the apron and hangs it up before turning back to Akechi.

The eyes that meet Akira’s are as determined as his own.

_Well, then._

“Let’s head upstairs,” he says, and Akechi stands up without answering, taking his briefcase and moving deliberately towards the stairway.

They step into the attic. The window above Akira’s bed is open, and he crosses the room to close it – there’s enough fresh air in here by now, and he doesn’t really want to risk being heard while they’re in the middle of something indecent. Akechi follows him silently and puts the briefcase on the floor by the bed.

Akira turns to him. Takes in the sight of him. Comes close, then closer, steps into Akechi’s space and puts his hands on Akechi’s hips. And then, just because he’s stubborn and doesn’t learn from his mistakes, leans in for another kiss.

Akechi doesn’t bite him this time, but his hands rush up Akira’s body, his right wrapping around Akira’s shoulders and his left slipping into Akira’s hair, gripping his curls tight and pulling. He’s rougher than the stories painted him, his nails sink into Akira like small hooks, his kisses burning and violent, and it’s like someone flipped a switch inside him – he’s chasing Akira’s lips with desperation of a man who’s waited for too long.

“Ake–” Akira tries to call his name, but Akechi’s mouth muffles the rest of it, lips parting, and then there’s a hungry tongue sliding against his own, hot and slippery, effectively muting whatever it was that he wanted to say.

Akira presses their hips flush. The contact sends a jolt of heat to his groin, and he lowers his hands from Akechi’s hips to his ass, grabbing two handfuls and jerking him forward. The friction that movement creates is delicious enough for them to break the kiss and moan into each other’s mouths.

They breathe the same air. Akira’s chest is heaving. Akechi leans away slightly and looks at him with concentration he didn’t expect to see after making out like they did: Akechi’s brows are furrowed, his mouth a hard line. The hand that was lying on Akira’s shoulder trails down to his chest and grips his school shirt.

“What…?” Akira breathes out, but instead of answering, Akechi shoves him back.

Akira lands on the bed with a dull thud. His glasses almost fall off his face at the impact, and he fixes them, watching as Akechi steps closer.

“This is what we're going to do,” Akechi says firmly, towering above him. “I knew this would happen, and I prepared myself. You can top, but I will ride, and I’m leading this. Do we have a deal?”

Akira’s cock throbs against his pants at the mere image those words put in his head. Thinking about Akechi preparing himself would probably make him overheat, so he focuses on the present and nods.

“Yeah. We have a deal.”

“Excellent.”

Akechi hooks his fingers around the top button of his shirt and pops it open. Akira swallows, committing the sight to his memory. Part of him wants to reach out and help, to undress Akechi himself, to _touch_ , but the other whispers into his ear for him to lie back and to wait and _look, Akechi is removing his clothes for you, all on his own, just like you imagined him do so many times,_ and Akira can’t bring himself to ruin it.

When the shirt is finally shrugged off and dropped on the nearby chair, Akira has a few precious seconds to appreciate the fine muscles on Akechi’s arms before Akechi leans over him, knees apart, reclaiming his lips. He clings to the hem of Akira’s shirt, and Akira lifts his chest a little to let him remove it and throw it across the room. Next time Akechi presses to him, it’s skin to skin, the feeling so intense that Akira loses himself in it for a moment.

His hands surge down to Akechi’s ass again, their favorite place to be, as it seems, and his fingers spread over it, dipping down to where Akechi’s entrance should be. He can’t feel much through clothes, but Akechi grunts quietly into his mouth and presses back into the touch, bucking his hips without any restraint whatsoever.

Akira chuckles brightly. “You’re eager.”

“What a smart observation,” Akechi shoots back, propping himself on his elbows, his hair framing his face in the most attractive way. “Why don’t we see how eager I can make _you_ be, then?”

He pulls away, and before Akira has a chance to ask what’s going on, straddles his hips shamelessly, pressing his ass to the bulge of Akira’s trapped cock. Akechi starts moving without any warning, fast and hard and merciless, and Akira can’t do anything but latch both hands onto his thighs and moan brokenly, thrusting up on instinct.

It’s not what he thought would happen, but it’s good, almost dangerously good, and Akechi looks beautiful like this: half-naked, disheveled, proud… Akira fears to look down where their bodies are meeting because he’s sure he’ll come if he does– no, scratch that, he’s going to come regardless at this rate, his imagination can supply him with proper feed, and it feels–

Akechi thrusts down forcefully, and Akira’s lips part in a silent scream, his voice getting stuck in his throat.

“W-wait…! Please–” he chokes out, and Akechi snorts above him.

“What, already?” he asks tauntingly but with no real spite, and thankfully, his hips come to a halt. Akira breathes heavily, trying to calm down. He pushes at Akechi’s stomach, and Akechi gets off him, giving Akira a break while he unbuckles his belt.

“How often do you think I do this,” Akira mutters, doing his best not to let the embarrassment show. He can feel his underwear getting soaked with precum, and unzips his pants carefully, avoiding the touch of fabric at all costs.

“I wouldn’t know,” Akechi says airily as he shifts to the edge of the bed.

He drops his pants along with his underwear on top of his discarded shirt and peels off his socks next. After sending them to the pile, fully naked, he reaches down to the floor for something Akira can’t see from where he’s lying, but a familiar click informs him that Akechi has just opened his briefcase.

“Actually, this is important,” Akechi says, sitting back up and glancing in his direction, a small bottle of lube in his grasp. “Have you done it with somebody else before?”

“No,” Akira confesses breathlessly. “And we’re good if you want to do it bare, I just…”

 _I’m not sure I’ll last longer than ten seconds,_ he finishes the thought inwardly.

Akechi looks at him. There it is again, the expression Akira can’t decipher, but he doesn’t have time to think about it as Akechi crawls back over him and straddles his hips once more. Their cocks brush; Akira’s mouth waters at the sight and sensation combined, and his hand reaches out to touch them–

Akechi bats it away.

“Let me,” he says curtly, wrapping his fingers around Akira’s length and thoroughly ignoring his own.

Akira doesn’t have it in him to object, not when the hand around him tightens and begins to pump him in earnest, quickly and with definite purpose. He bites his already damaged lip, making it sting harsher: Akechi’s hand is nothing like his own, the rhythm is all off and makes Akira’s toes curl in bliss, and the feeling of being touched by someone else – and by Goro Akechi of all people – is so foreign and all-consuming that Akira really doesn’t last very long. He comes all over Akechi’s hand less than a minute later, quivering, throwing his head back with a loud moan.

When he descends from his high, the first thing he sees is Akechi looking down at him, his face devoid of emotion. His pupils are so large his irises are almost invisible, and his lips are parted, breaths heavy.

His hand is still holding Akira’s cock.

“I… that was…” Akira struggles to say, but Akechi is down on him at once, kissing him again. This kiss is as desperate as the second one they shared, Akechi’s tongue exploring Akira’s mouth while his hands explore Akira’s body, and they’re rushing everywhere: down his sides, back to his chest and then up to Akira’s face, cupping his cheeks. “Akechi–”

“Yeah,” Akechi answers like he’s not even there, licking into Akira’s mouth without abandon. Akira strokes his ribs gently, wondering if he should return the favor now, but Akechi appears to be content with what he’s doing, so he waits.

Eventually Akechi leans away to let them both catch their breaths. His hair is a mess, his lips shiny and red from overuse, his chest rising and falling unsteadily, and if Akira’s lungs didn’t require air, he’d be pulling him back in a heartbeat.

“Alright?” he asks, and Akechi nods wordlessly, looking around for the bottle of lube he tossed away earlier in favor of touching Akira.

He finds it somewhere in the folds of the blanket beside them and opens the cap, pouring lube on his fingers. As he slides them between his legs to work himself open, a whine escapes Akira’s throat at the sight – Akechi is right there in front of his eyes, his heat seeping into Akira’s thighs, his free hand pressed to Akira’s stomach for support, and Akira wants, he wants to touch so bad–

But when he reaches out, Akechi bats his hand away again.

“Let me do it.”

“No.”

“Let me do it,” Akira insists with the voice he reserves for his Metaverse self. Although Akechi shivers visibly at the command, he shakes his head.

“There’s no need,” he says, his breath hitching. “I’ve told you, I prepared myself. Just give me ah… a moment…”

Akira doesn’t want to give him a moment. He doesn’t want to lie there motionlessly either, and so he comes up with an alternative, frustration in his eyes turning into mischief. He sits up, wraps one arm around Akechi’s waist to bring them closer and tucks his face into the junction between Akechi’s neck and his shoulder.

Akechi won’t let him finger his ass, fine. But surely he’s not expecting Akira to lie back and do _nothing_.

So he releases all hell on Akechi’s skin with his tongue and his teeth, licks a thin stripe up to his jawline, sucks on his flushed skin, and Akechi squirms against him, whimpering, his hand picking up speed. His breath comes out in short, steamy puffs, faster and faster the more Akira teases him, and at some point he drops his forehead on Akira’s shoulder, shuddering as the other’s breath ghosts over the sensitive shell of his ear.

It doesn’t take long for him to prepare himself just like he promised. Akechi pulls his fingers out and presses his other hand to Akira’s chest, pushing him back down on the mattress.

Akira falls obediently this time, a wide grin on his face. He’s not fully hard yet, but he’s recovered, and Akechi only needs to stroke him a few times to get him to the state they both want him to be in.

“Since you were honest with me, I will be honest with you too,” Akechi says while he’s applying a generous amount of lube to Akira’s cock, his free hand pushing Akira’s school pants down so they don’t get stained. “I haven’t done this before, either.”

Something akin to relief surges through Akira at those words, spreading all over him like honey.

“Could’ve fooled me,” he murmurs fondly.

Then Akechi is lowering himself on his cock, and Akira can’t think about anything at all.

He sinks into Akechi without much effort, moaning as wet, soft walls clench around him ceaselessly. The feeling is so overwhelming he would have undoubtedly come right now if Akechi hadn’t jerked him off earlier, and even with that precaution it’s still intense. Akechi claws at his stomach as he takes Akira deeper, and with each inch that disappears in the smothering heat a part of Akira’s self-control melts away.

“Ah… ah–!” He gasps out, and his hands fly to Akechi’s hips, digging into his flesh.

It feels good, so good. He wants more. His fingers squeeze harder, and he pushes down, trying to force Akechi into taking him in faster.

Akechi hisses at him warningly.

“Akira–”

He knows he shouldn’t hurry this up. He knows they made a deal and he should respect it. But he also wants this, wanted this for months – finally, _finally_ he has Akechi here, on top of him, giving himself to Akira in a way he never gave himself to anyone else, and the knowledge of it makes Akira’s mind swim.

 _My Detective Prince. Mine. You’re mine now, Goro, mine,_ is stuck on repeat in his head, and he lowers his hips to the bed only to buck them up again. The walls around him pulse wildly at the intrusion, and a stiff sound slips through Akechi’s clenched teeth.

Immediately, Akechi leans over him. His hands dart to Akira’s neck, fingers closing around his throat, and while the grip is not tight enough to cut air from Akira’s lungs completely, it still restricts some of the flow and startles his awareness awake. Akira gasps, his eyes widening in slightly panicked confusion.

“Have you forgotten our deal?” Akechi asks him dryly.

Akira struggles to hold his glare.

“It’s kinda hard to think with my dick inside you,” he admits, and Akechi rolls his eyes at him.

“You’re pathetic,” he announces. He doesn’t sound very disappointed, though.

Akira doesn’t know what to expect from here but he definitely doesn’t expect Akechi to start moving on his cock again, just like that, with his fingers still locked possessively around Akira’s neck. A low moan tumbles out of his mouth as Akechi swallows him to the hilt, throbbing all around him, and even though Akechi seemed displeased mere seconds ago, he easily mirrors that moan with his own.

He doesn’t protest when Akira’s hands fall back to his hips. In his turn, Akira doesn’t push him anymore, only holds on to him and rocks into the tight heat, pressing flush to Akechi’s ass at the pace Akechi feels like setting.

It’s hotter than it should be. The hands around his throat serve as a constant reminder of who Akechi actually is – a threat to the Phantom Thieves and especially to Akira as their leader – but at the same time Akechi is riding him with enthusiasm that’s growing violent, sucking him whole with insatiable greed, and the more their bodies slap against each other, the weaker Akechi’s hold on Akira’s neck becomes.

Soon it disappears altogether, and he sits upright, bracing his hands on Akira’s thighs and panting shallowly as Akira’s cock rubs inside him in all the right ways. Akechi throws his head back with a loud whine at a particularly deep thrust, exposing the sweaty column of his neck, and the view drives Akira insane with desire.

It bolts through him, coils in his groin. He wraps one hand around Akechi’s slick cock to jerk it roughly, further smearing it with precum, and a strained moan falls out of Akechi’s mouth. His pace stutters; Akira doesn’t let it cease, holds him in place and keeps slamming up like his life depends on it.

“A-Akira–!” Akechi cries out, his thighs trembling from pressure, and Akira’s instincts pick up on the urgency in his voice right away.

He moves his hand quicker, strokes Akechi harder – beautiful, ragged moans tear away from Akechi’s parted lips one after another, filling the attic. Akechi is quickly coming apart, which is no surprise, considering how long he’s been hard in the first place, but Akira has never seen him lose control like this. The sight of it overloads him with primal need, and he wants to witness it more often, he wants to witness it every day.

“Akira–”

Akechi drops his head back down, his eyes hazy.

“Akira, I’m… I can’t…” he whimpers, and Akira nods at him with affection.

“Go ahead.”

“Akira–!”

He spills all over Akira’s fingers, moaning loudly, brokenly, his entire body shaking. Akira wants to savor the feeling of sheer satisfaction that comes to him with the realization that he was the one who did this – he and not some fictional nobody – but Akechi pulses around him as he releases, and he can’t fight the wave of pleasure that washes over him.

Akira follows close, buried deep inside, his eyes squeezed shut.

Then everything passes. Akechi falls on top of him, panting heavily. Everything is messy between them, and the small part of Akira that’s able to process basic thoughts is glad that they had the brains to push his school pants down to his knees. He’d hate to deal with come stains, and it’s already too late for that anyway – he has classes in the morning.

“You’re staying, right?” he asks, nudging Akechi’s ear with the tip of his nose.

Akechi shifts on top of him and then rolls on his side, landing next to Akira on the mattress. There’s just enough space for them to lie comfortably if they don’t move around too much.

“I shouldn’t,” he answers slowly. His voice is hoarse. “I have classes tomorrow. My school uniform is back in my apartment and so are my books.”

“Is that the only reason?” Akira wonders, and Akechi offers him a weak smile.

“Well, I’m also filthy and would like to take a shower,” he says. “Do you have tissues by the way?”

“…yeah. Yeah, hold on.”

Akira pushes his pants and briefs down the rest of the way and crouches over Akechi to the edge of the bed, lowering his feet to the floor and shivering as cool air bites at his heated skin. He walks over to the working table where keeps a box of tissues for crafting purposes and then returns to the bed – Akechi takes a few pieces of soft white paper and moves away a little, leaving enough space for Akira to sit.

“Listen, I know you want to go,” Akira says carefully as he wipes himself clean. “But would it really hurt if you stayed? You’re not going to get much sleep at any rate, and it’s dark outside.”

“Worried about my safety?” Akechi chuckles at him.

“I am,” Akira admits. “And I want you here tonight, too. We don’t have a shower, but that can wait, can’t it? You could leave for your apartment tomorrow morning before Sojiro arrives. I’d wake you up.”

He throws a glance at Akechi, hoping his nervousness is not palpable enough to be perceived.

He doesn’t know how it will feel if Akechi leaves him alone tonight, what this experience they’ve just plunged into will mean – and he loved it, he loved it so much. He wishes it would continue and not just because it felt good, but because it’s Akechi he did it with. Not the Detective Prince, not the threat to the Phantom Thieves – his rival, his equal, the person Akira feels most connected to.

If Akechi stays, that will mean he wouldn’t mind having this either, whatever it is.

He waits while Akechi wipes at his stomach with an absent expression, frowning at nothing in particular. He takes a while to answer – to weigh all pros and cons, Akira assumes, he wouldn’t have it any other way, and then–

“I suppose I could do that,” Akechi says, and Akira lets out the breath he was holding without even knowing.

“Alright. Hand me the tissues when you’re done and let’s get some sleep.”

***

***

***

The leader of the Phantom Thieves and the Detective Prince, side by side.

Well. He got what he wanted.

He really wishes he didn’t, but there’s no changing it now. Hidden under the blanket, Akira clutches his phone, and he doesn’t read anything. He doesn’t send any messages, either.

All he does is lies there in the dark, and it hurts, hurts, hurts.

***

***

***

It becomes worse. Then, it becomes better.

On the second day of January Akira smiles his first real smile since the casino heist back in November.

Maybe he didn’t lose everything after all.

***

There’s a movement on Akira’s right. It’s swift, sharp, a flash of black and white darting out from around the corner, and he barely manages to jump out of the way before a thick bolt of lightning strikes at where he was standing less than a second ago.

He lands on his feet gracefully. Straightens up. Brings his hand to his mask–

But the name of his Persona doesn’t have the time to leave his tongue, and so he stands there without acting, watching as a dark figure flanks the Shadow and thrusts the crooked edge of a brightly glowing sword through its middle. The Shadow howls, bends backwards, its hands rushing to the wound, and yet it’s too late, and just like every other defeated foe it dissipates into a puff of black smoke.

Akechi doesn’t even grace him with a glance. He silently walks up to the corner and checks around it, and from the way he lowers his sword it’s clear to Akira that there’s no danger lurking around them anymore.

He shakes his head with a chuckle. “I had this one, and you know it.”

“Not my fault you’re so slow,” he hears in response. Akira’s smile widens: he didn’t expect Akechi to become quite this edgy after the grand reveal in Shido’s Palace, but there’s no denying that he finds this version intriguing even though he misses the pleasant attitude sometimes.

This Akechi is rough. He’s violent. He does his best to make it seem like he doesn’t give a shit, and that’s what tempts Akira into teasing him at every given opportunity.

“Oh really?” he says, playing deftly with his knife as he steps towards the other. Akechi watches the movements of his hand – or it appears to be so at least, Akira can’t really tell with that black mask of his. “Not gonna lie, to me it looked like you were trying to protect me.”

He hears a snort, Akechi’s shorter version for ‘don’t be ridiculous, Joker’.

_Bingo._

Akira continues to be ridiculous.

“You know, I read a story about you doing that once,” he says as he catches up with the other and they continue walking forward together. “It was one of the first stories I’ve read, actually, and it was pretty awful too, but there’s this bit of monologue I just can’t forget–”

“Don’t–”

“ _–You think I would ever let anything harm you, my love?_ ” Akira quotes with one hand pressed to his chest, doing the best impression of the Detective Prince he’s capable of. “ _We may be enemies, but we have a future together, and I will fight to my last breath to make it happen!_ And then we kissed.”

“Joker, we’re in the middle of a Palace infiltration,” Akechi points out as he opens a large door at the end of the corridor. His voice is carefully neutral, but Akira can hear the telltale notes of irritation in them, and that spurs him on.

“Or how about another one where you take care of me,” he says as they enter a large room filled with cognitions that roam about without any sense of purpose. “ _The Detective Prince sits by the bed where his beloved thief is sleeping through his second night, injured and helpless, here in Goro Akechi’s apartment where no one will try to find him. ‘Trying to steal that man’s heart was so stupid of you,’ the detective says, ‘but at the same time so noble, I–’_ Lucifer! Ice Age!”

Spikes of ice bolt high from the floor, impaling one of the Shadows on their left, the other escaping the attack due to its resistance to the element perhaps. Akechi’s hand darts to his mask.

“Hereward, kill it!!”

The Shadow screams as it’s hit by an attack it cannot dodge nor absorb, chasing its ally into oblivion.

They’re all incredibly weak, for a place like this. Or maybe they’re not, and it’s just the result of good teamwork. The latter seems plausible: Akira visited Mementos with only Akechi by his side a few times prior to this outing, and their enemies fell apart one after another.

It’s relieving to have Akechi back even after what happened. Especially after what happened. Akira may be a little weird in that regard, relying on someone who attempted to kill him in the past, but somehow he can’t bring himself to push Akechi away at all. He doesn’t even want to – the only thing he wants is to sit down with Akechi someday, when all of this is over, and have a long talk because he knows things went far beyond the simple ‘I want to kill you’.

He knows Akechi cares about him more than he lets on. He knows that for sure because Akechi shows it when he thinks Akira isn’t watching.

On the first night after their reunion Akira woke up pressed to Akechi’s chest, and even through the sleepy haze he could feel the body against his own shivering, Akechi’s arms a tight clutch around him. He could hear Akechi’s stuttering, uneven breaths, so full of desperation he barely resisted the impulse to make his awareness known and interfere with emotional support he knew would only unsettle Akechi more.

Then there are days, their duo Metaverse adventures, and all jokes aside, Akira can see how aggressively Akechi is focused on protecting him if he thinks Akira can’t hold his ground on his own. He’s seen Akechi fight as Crow, he’s seen him fight as Black Mask – the difference is stark, and not only in the verbal aspect.

Akechi may try to disguise it as Akira being slow, but Akira knows better. 

“Stop lagging, or I’m leaving you behind,” he hears from up ahead and raises his eyes to see Akechi lingering by the entrance to the next room. Akira wants to stay still for a little longer just to check if Akechi will actually leave.

“Coming,” he says instead.

Time to resume the teasing.

“So yeah, as I was saying, there’s quite a bunch of stories about you protecting me,” he goes on, joining Akechi by the door. Akechi probably – definitely – makes a face beneath his mask but doesn’t complain just yet. “There was this one where you knew I was the leader of the Phantom Thieves all along and still looked after me. Pretty romantic, your _‘I figured you out at the beginning, and I didn’t care–’_ ”

“I did figure you out at the beginning,” Akechi interrupts him.

Akira halts, blinking at him curiously. Akechi stops a couple steps ahead of him and sighs; his clawed hand rises to his face and then falls back down when he remembers there’s no way he can touch it without disturbing the costume first.

“It was child’s play. You arrived to Tokyo _on probation_ , and that corresponded with the first change of heart that also happened to occur in the school you transferred to. Then Madarame’s heart was changed, and suddenly you were hanging out with Yusuke Kitagawa. And best of all, you have that ‘Sayuri’ painting hanging in Leblanc. Even if I hadn’t followed you around during your infiltrations, your connection to the Phantom Thieves would’ve still been pretty obvious. Honestly, I’m surprised it went above Sae-san’s head.”

Akira puts his hands into his pockets. Smiles, his eyes downcast.

“I sort of didn’t expect either of you to come to Leblanc. When you did, it was too late, and things would seem even more suspicious if I took off the painting. You’d notice right away.”

“Joker, you shouldn’t have hanged it there in the first place,” Akechi informs him dryly, moving onwards. “Let’s keep going now, we’ve wasted enough time talking about stupid fanfiction.”

“Hey, it’s not stupid.” Akira catches up with him and drops one hand over his shoulders. The mask turns to face him sharply, and even though Akira can’t clearly see Akechi’s eyes, he can easily feel the violent intent in them. He presses Akechi to his side regardless. “It was horrible more often than not, completely inaccurate, frustrating, and outright disturbing at times, but you can’t argue that it brought us closer…”

“Whatever you say, Joker,” Akechi grits his teeth.

He tries to walk faster, jerks his shoulder to shake off Akira’s arm, but Akira clings to him with such effort that in the end he has no other choice but to give up.

“There were good stories too!” Akira laughs freely as they walk. “There was this one where you secretly were the leader of the Phantom Thieves yourself, and I was your right-hand man. Oh, the joy of having you as my partner in crime– until we were both killed, that is…”

“Joker, one more word and I’m leaving you here,” Akechi hisses warningly.

“Or another one where we weren’t even connected to crime and justice and were rivaling bakers in a small town instead? You had that tiny but really comfy shop, and your delicious chocolate pies always outmatched mine…”

“Joker…”

“Or remember _Second Best_ where you ended up somehow fooling an entire police station, set me free from my cell, and then we drove together into the sunset? Man, what a plot twist, I never saw it coming… And yesterday the author posted a new story where we’re both girls and I’m still the leader of the Phantom Thieves while you’re the Detective Princess, but instead of stealing hearts I steal phones, and when I steal yours I find out that–”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Joker, SHUT UP!”

Akira gets elbowed in the ribs, hard, and he stumbles away from Akechi, laughing louder than it’s probably wise in a place like this. Akechi huffs and walks demonstratively away from him, refusing to look back.

He lingers at the exit though, right before the door. ‘One more word and I’m leaving you here’, he said.

So it doesn’t surprise Akira at all when he stays.


End file.
